The Higfher Education 



George Trumbud Ladd 







LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap._U>' Copyright No 

Slielf_.i.L_§,_l 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



ESSAYS 



ON 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 



ESSAYS 



ON 



THE HIGHER EDUCATION 



1/ 

GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD 

If 

PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN TALE UNIVERSITY 



NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1899 



\ 



t^ .->' 



25256 

Copyright, 1899, 
By Charles Scribner's Sons. 



.,D. 



John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 






PREFACE 



The four essays which are now gathered into 
this volume were originally written for different 
audiences, and have already been published in 
different magazines. The paper on " The Devel- 
opment of the American University" was read 
before the " Round Table " of Boston, and that on 
"The Place of the Fitting-School in American 
Education " before the New England Association 
of Colleges and Preparatory Schools. A request 
from the editors of the "Andover Review " to 
reply to the presentation, made by a friend and 
colleague, of another system of higher education 
than that of which I was the chosen advocate, led 
to the article on " Education, New and Old." The 
occasion of its production, therefore, accounts for 
the more special and polemical character of the 
third essay. The address on " The Essentials of 
a Modern Liberal Education " was delivered be- 
fore the Association of the Alumni of Western 
Reserve University at the Commencement of 1895. 
All four of these essays are here published with 
very few and unimportant verbal changes. 



vi PREFACE 

Since the first three of these essays were written 
at a period of more than ten years ago, they con- 
tain many particulars of statement which would 
need modification if revised in view of later facts, 
and some particulars of opinion which I should 
now express in a different way. It is gratifying 
to find that certain suggestions made in them as 
to possible remedies for then existing evils and 
deficiencies have been adopted and more or less 
successfully carried out. It is also a cause for 
hope that some of the mists arising from the first 
thawing of the fields congealed by long continued 
customs and traditions have begun to clear away ; 
so that a more judicious estimate of the path 
which lies behind us in educational matters and 
of the lines of educational progress in the nearer 
future, can be more easily attained. But he cer- 
tainly overestimates the assured and thoroughly 
well proven value of much that is " new " in edu- 
cation, and also underestimates the numerous 
puzzling problems which remain to be solved, the 
practical difficulties still to be overcome, who 
regards the permanent courses of the more popular 
or of the higher education in this country as by 
any means clearly marked out. 

The enthusiastic advocate of what is new in 
educational ideas — as to subjects, methods, cur- 
ricula, organization, etc. — regards it as highly 
unfortunate that institutions are not so plastic, so 



PREFACE vii 

easy to change, as are ideas. The man who is 
wise in practical affairs, and profound in his re- 
flections upon the truths of history, knows that, 
on the contrary, this abiding and relatively stable 
character of the institutional expression of ideas 
is the fortunate thing about educational, as about 
other forms of progress. Most fortunate of all are 
those institutions which change just fast and far 
enough to conserve the priceless lessons of the 
past, while unfolding constantly to receive the 
suggestions of the better time coming. 

It is not, then, because any of the details of 
opinion expressed in these essays are regarded as 
a finality that 1 have thought it possibly worth 
while to publish them. As respects these very 
details I should still be unwilling to commit my- 
self unalterably to any of the current conflicting 
opinions. And I have already indicated that the 
events of the last decade have modified, in ways 
which need not at present be discussed or even 
noted, what was said upon various points before 
the original hearers of these essays. But if they 
possess any value sufficient to justify calling at- 
tention to them again, collectively and in this 
unobtrusive way, it is because they all intend to 
emphasize the three following truths : First, there 
are some settled and permanent principles which 
belong to all educational systems, in all times; 
and we may know what these principles are. But, 



viii PREFACE 

second, every age, and every country, has its own 
problems which concern the actual application of 
these unchanging principles, in an institutional 
way^ to its own demands and necessities. Every 
age is "modern," in its own thought; but the 
rapidity of the current changes, and the vastness 
of the forces at work, create for us some especially 
pressing demands and peculiarly hard necessities. 
And, third, nothing but practical wisdom — a com- 
bination of knowledge of the values involved in 
the different studies and disciplines with a gen- 
erous and sympathetic spirit toward each, and tact 
and patience in dealing with details — will solve 
for us, in this country and to-day, our educational 
problems. 

GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD. 

Yale University, 

January, 1899. 



CONTENTS 



Page 
I. The Development of the American 

University 3-49 

II. The Place of the Fitting School in 

American Education .... 53-72 

III. Education, New and Old .... 75-108 

IV. A Modern Liberal Education . . 111-142 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE 
AMERICAN UNIVEESITY 



ESSAYS 
ON THE HIGHER EDUCATION 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE AMERICAN 
UNIVERSITY 

Neither of the two most attractive and promis- 
ing methods which ordinarily lie open for the dis- 
cussion of a question like this, can in the present 
instance be followed exclusively. These two 
methods may be styled the descriptive, or histori- 
cal, and the speculative, or ideal. By following 
the first method one would be led to state what the 
university has been and is in this country, and in 
other parts of the world whose civilization most 
nearly resembles our own ; and then to show by 
what modifications the institution, as it now exists, 
might be made what it should be. Even in this 
way, however, it is plain that one would have to 
set up some ideal standard, in accordance with 
which any proposed modifications should take 
place. In following the second method one might 
feel emboldened at once to state what the preva- 



4 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

lent form of the university ought to be ; but one 
would then have to show how our existing educa- 
tional institutions may be changed in order to 
bring them into conformity with such an ideal 
standard. 

Now, in this country, up to the present time, 
there has existed no form of an educational insti- 
tution which we can call " the American university," 
if by this term we intend to designate something 
other and higher than " the American college," 
with its possible attachment of one or more pro- 
fessional schools. Any one possessed of the requi- 
site information knows at once what is meant by the 
university of France, the English universities, or a 
German university; but no one can become so 
conversant with facts as to tell what an American 
university is. It would by no means be fair, how- 
ever, to sum up the history of the development of 
this institution with the curt sentence: "There 
are no universities in America." To be sure, it 
is hardly twenty years since the rector of Lincoln 
College, Oxford (Mark Pattison), wrote: "In 
America scientific culture has never been intro- 
duced. It has no universities such as we under- 
stand by the term." But the same writer speaks 
of Yale University as "stated to be a poor and 
hard-worked seminary," and marvels at the extent 
and variety of its required curriculum. Since Mr. 
Pattison^s writing, a large number of schools have 



THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 5 

sprung up in our West, some private and some 
state institutions, most of which have but veiled 
thinly over their deficiencies in scientific quality, 
equipment, and force and aim in teaching, by put- 
ting on the title of " university." Yale (and, to a 
greater extent, Harvard) has changed rapidly in 
the effort to validate this title. Johns Hopkins 
has made a noble start toward the realization of a 
high ideal, and various other institutions have 
given notice of their claims to be, or intentions to 
become, genuine universities. Still, it is scarcely 
less true than it was a score of years ago that, al- 
though there may be universities in America, no 
one can tell what an American university is. 

On the other hand, there is no lack of theory 
and counsel as to the important inquiry, what the 
American university should be. Perhaps it would 
not be unfair to say that, as a rule, the less the 
amount of study which a man has given to the 
many difficult problems that enter into the devel- 
opment of the highest-class educational institutions 
in this country, the prompter and more certain is 
his response to this inquiry. Men who have a 
million or two of money, and who, from the train- 
ing of their lives, have come to think all things — 
save heaven, and scarcely save that — purchasable 
with so goodly a sum, are peculiarly tempted to try 
the experiment of founding and calling by their 
name the one genuine and great American univer- 



6 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

sity. If the general theory of the purchasableness 
of all things which enter into a university were 
true, it would still have to be said that the ordi- 
nary estimate of the amount required is inadequate. 
But surely, as long as the primary and indispens- 
able prerequisite of a genuine and great university, 
wherever under the sky it may be located, is a body 
of teachers and pupils rightly trained, and united 
and animated by the right spirit, the actual result 
attainable by merely giving large sums of money 
will not fulfil a worthy ideal. 

The speculative method, when employed by per- 
sons informed in the principles and practice of 
education, is, of course, far safer and more valuable 
than when employed by the ignorant. Yet I can 
never forget that institutions, unlike systems of 
abstract truth, are not wisely treated in the purely 
speculative way. A university is, at most, an 
institution; it is a complicated system of means 
through which one set of persons operates upon 
another set of persons for the accomplishment of 
certain ends. But every means must afford an 
answer to four inquiries : Out of what material can 
it be constituted ? Who or what is to use it ? 
Upon whom or upon what is it to be used ? For 
what end is it to be used ? To inquire as to what 
the American philosophy should be, savors of irra- 
tionality ; and the inquiry would have the same 
savor if it took the form. What should the Scottish, 



THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 7 

or French, or German, or Sandwich-Islands phi- 
losophy be ? For the only answer to all these 
inquiries is that philosophy is not a matter for 
adjustment, as a means, to national requirements, 
but every nation and individual that cultivates 
philosophy should aim at having a true philosophy. 
On the contrary, the inquiry, "What should the 
American university be?" is not an irrational 
inquiry, for it is an inquiry after the best means 
to an end. For the same reason it cannot be raised 
and answered as a purely speculative inquiry ; 
since the nature of the material out of which the 
American university must be constituted, if it is 
constituted at all, imposes upon every ideal some 
very hard and unavoidable limitations. 

Accordingly, I shall abstain as carefully from 
speculating about an unattainable ideal as from 
describing a nonentity. Since neither the histori- 
cal nor the speculative method can be pursued ex- 
clusively to their final results, let us be content to 
go only a little way into the subject by the use of 
both methods. For although there is no history, 
as yet, of the development of the American univer- 
sity, there are colleges and professional schools and 
other institutions of the so-called higher learning 
in this country, and all these institutions have a 
tolerably rich and instructive history. If we are 
ever to attain a distinctive university education, 
such as can be properly called " American," these 



8 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

institutions, their existing and prospective structure 
and work, must be chiefly taken into our account, 
for they furnish the material from which, and the 
conditions on which, the development of the univer- 
sity must, for the most part, take place. If this 
material and these conditions are dealt with ill, 
no amount of talk and enthusiasm will save us 
from pursuing an unattainable or an unworthy 
ideal. 

One word more should be premised upon this 
point. The American university must be developed 
on its own soil, and out of the existing materials, 
and under the existing conditions. It cannot be 
imported, or constructed de novo, as it were, from 
the brain and purse of any one man, or of any small 
number of men. " The University of Oxford," says 
Mr. Maxwell Lyte, " did not spring into being in 
any particular year, or at the bidding of any par- 
ticular founder ; it was not established by any 
formal charter of incorporation." Particular insti- 
tutions bearing the name of universities may, of 
course, be founded in this country in a particular 
year, and at the bidding of a particular founder. 
But these will not give us the true norm or type. 
This will come only as the result of a living de- 
velopment. 

Nor can I believe that it will be possible to create 
our university by using large importations of fin- 
ished foreign goods. Would that the German 



THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 9 

model might furnish us certain of the more impor- 
tant and vital factors of the ideal toward which we 
resolve to grow ! Yet the proposal at once to im- 
port largely from the methods and constitution of 
the German university would be likely to result in 
failure. There are many features of the University 
as already established in Germany which we should 
not wish to imitate if we could. The more impor- 
tant commendable factors — the thorough second- 
ary education of those who matriculate, the scientific 
character of the teachers and the scientific and free 
quality of their teaching, the relative disregard for 
what we incline so much to overestimate, namely, 
the pursuits that fit directly for some form of prac- 
tical life (^Brodstudieri) — we can gain only in time 
and by paying the price for them. Many things in 
the French university system, also, and especially 
what Matthew Arnold calls "too much requiring 
of authorizations before a man may stir," unfit it 
to be our model. Nor can we think of taking very 
freely and directly from those great English insti- 
tutions of Oxford and Cambridge, to which we 
should most naturally look for our models. The 
expensive character of the education they impart, 
the dominance of the tutorial system in their col- 
leges to the detriment of the university, the large 
amount of sinecurism which they permit and en- 
courage, the distinction between " pass " and 
'* honor " examinations, and between the one- 



10 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

quarter who come to study and win prizes and the 
three-quarters who come chiefly to gain the social 
distinction of a degree, — prevent our imitating 
them. As to the Scotch universities, I cannot 
avoid thinking that following them is most of all to 
be deprecated. For this reason it should not escape 
our notice that certain modifications now taking 
place in the constitution and working of the Amer- 
ican college are liable to encourage in this country 
some of the worst features of the Scotch universi- 
ties. At present, however, it is safely within the 
limits of truth to say that the degree of M.A. in a 
Scotch university does not necessarily signify (with 
the exception of logic and metaphysics) so much 
of training or acquisition as is required for admis- 
sion to a first-rate American college. To model 
after the Scotch universities would accordingly be 
to lower the college as we already have it, and not 
to develop the university as we should desire to 
have it. 

The development of the American university 
involves the progressive settlement of two questions 
concerning the best general method of education, 
which have been of late much discussed both here 
and in Europe. These are, the nature and amount 
of choice which the person under education shall 
exercise as to the subjects and method of his edu- 
cation, and the kind and proportion of knowledges 
and disciphnes which ought to enter into a so-called 



THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 11 

"liberal" education. In this country both these 
questions have generally been debated in a rather 
narrow way. The first has ordinarily been pro- 
posed as follows : How much of the college cur- 
riculum should be required, how much optional ? 
The second has ordinarily been reduced to a strife 
over the point, whether Greek is necessary to be 
studied by every one who shall be entitled B.A. 
The limits of this paper do not, of course, permit 
me to elaborate and argue my opinion on either of 
these two questions. Nothing more than an intelli- 
gent and defensible opinion^ appealing to probabili- 
ties in the light of past experience, can be gained 
upon such subjects of discussion. The purpose 
before me, however, makes it desirable that I should 
briefly state my opinion upon both these subjects. 

The question as to the choice which the person 
under education shall have in the material and 
form of his education is one both of degrees and 
of expedients, — that is to say, it is a question as 
to how much such choice shall be allowed, and at 
what time it shall begin, as well as a question con- 
cerning the best means for guiding the choice and 
for taking the expression of it. 

For the sake of convenience I will speak of the 
grades of education which may be secured at pres- 
ent in this country as four in number ; these are, 
the primary, the secondary, the higher, and the 
university education, the last being understood to 



12 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

be in a very inchoate and unformed condition. By 
the primary education we will understand such as, 
whether gained in public or private schools, deals 
with the most common and elementary subjects, 
and is not designed in itself to fit the pupil for the 
higher education. By the secondary education we 
will understand such as is expressly designed in 
preparation of the higher education; this will 
include those courses in the best high-schools and 
academies which fit pupils to enter the colleges 
and first-rate scientific schools of the country. 
These latter (excluding all merely technical schools) 
give what is entitled to be called the "higher" 
education. Beyond all this lies so much of the 
more strictly university education as is mingled 
with the later years of the higher education, or is 
taught in so-called " graduate " courses or in pro- 
fessional schools, so far as the latter are conformed 
to the university idea. It will appear in the sequel 
that one difficult problem connected with the devel- 
opment of the American university concerns the 
right separation of the higher education into the 
two parts of which it has actually come to consist, 
so that, by combining one of these parts with the 
secondary education as it now exists, we may gain 
a broad and solid foundation upon which to build 
the university education. The university part of 
the higher education as it now exists will, of 
course, then have to be joined with the other kin- 



THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 13 

dred elements in so-called " post-graduate " courses, 
so as to furnish a genuine university education in 
the greatest possible wealth and solidity. Wlien 
this problem is practically solved, therefore, we 
shall have three instead of four grades of education ; 
these will be, the primary, the secondary, and the 
higher or university education, but the two latter 
will probably have far more of significance than 
they now have. 

Looked at in the light of the foregoing distinc- 
tions, the question of the place and amount of the 
pupil's choice which should enter into his educa- 
tion appears to me not so difficult of solution. With 
regard to the strictly primary education no choice 
whatever should be permitted, either to the pupil 
or to his guardian, — that is to say, I would have 
each youth compelled by the state to go to a 
certain distance along paths common to all, with- 
out permission to decide whether he will go at all, 
or whether, if he go, he will go by just such paths 
rather than others. Of course, the guardian of the 
pupil should have the exercise of discretion as to 
the mode of teaching, whether public or private, 
and perhaps as to the age at which the primary 
education shall have been accomplished. Oppor- 
tunity for exceptions in the cases of the incapable 
or sickly should also be given. But the State 
should compel so much of education as seems 
necessary for the safe and intelligent exercise 



14 THE HIGHER ^EDUCATION 

of the citizen's rights, and for his decent inter- 
course with his fellows. No doubt opinions will 
differ as to the amount and kinds of subjects 
which should be included in the primary educa- 
tion, and as to its methods, text-books, etc. But 
the settlement of such questions should not be 
left to the dull or dishonest wits of the successful 
politician of the ward or district; they should 
rather be settled by commission of the most no- 
table experts in education, appointed for that pur- 
pose by the highest authority of the state. 

The element of the pupiFs choice should enter 
somewhat largely into the secondary education, 
but even here by no means in an unlimited way. 
In the first place, liberty of choice should be 
allowed in deciding whether the secondary educa- 
tion will be entered upon at all or not, and also, 
if entered upon, to what extent it will be pursued. 
In my opinion, also, near the beginning of the 
secondary education there should be given that 
opportunity for " bifurcation " which must cer- 
tainly come at some time in the course of mental 
training. The principle of this bifurcation is now 
tolerably plain and pretty generally acknowledged. 
In the words of Matthew Arnold, the prime, direct 
aim of education is " to enable a man to know him- 
self and the worlds Corresponding to this two- 
fold aim of education there is in most men, dormant 
or already dominant, one or the other of two great 



THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 15 

" aptitudes ; " these are, the aptitude for the more 
subjective and reflective studies, and the aptitude 
for the studies of external observation. In other 
words, among youths who take to anything in the 
way of study, some take more naturally to letters 
and philosophy, and some take more naturally to 
physical and natural sciences. The secondary 
education should recognize this difference in apti- 
tudes for one or the other part of the prime two- 
fold aim of education. Such recognition should 
provide for two main courses of study, in one of 
which letters and the so-called humanities should 
predominate, and in the other mathematics and 
the physical and natural sciences. These courses 
should themselves, however, be fixed without 
making a frequent appeal to the choice of the 
pupil; they should be fixed in accordance with 
the world's accumulated wisdom as to the best 
way to teach a man "to know himself and the 
world," in harmony with his particular aptitude. 
The secondary education, in all cases where it is 
to lead up to a university education, should be 
long and thorough enough to secure what the 
Germans strive to secure as a preparation for 
their universities, — namely, the general scientific 
culture, or formation (allgemeine wissenscJiaftUcTie 
Bildung), of the pupil. 

The higher or university education should per- 
mit and encourage the greatest possible freedom 



16 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

of choice on the pupil's part ; but it should not 
be open (except as a matter of courtesy or privi- 
lege of visitation) to those who have not satisfac- 
torily finished the secondary stage. To this 
subject, however, I shall return later. 

A word is pertinent in this connection as to the 
much-debated question of the amount of optional 
courses to be allowed in the present college cur- 
riculum. The American college was formerly a 
secondary school, pure and simple, and properly, 
therefore, did not admit the university method and 
the university idea. The American college has 
now developed out of the stage in which it was 
strictly a means for secondary education, without 
having yet developed into the higher or university 
stage. It contains, however, certain elements of 
the university idea. These elements are to be 
welcomed as existing in the place of something 
better but as yet unrealizable. In so far as the 
college can wisely admit into itself, for a time, 
the elements of a university education, it may 
have, and should have, so-called '' optional " 
courses. But the education which most American 
colleges give is still chiefly of the secondary order 
and kind. This is necessarily so, because the 
opportunity for such an education as should already 
be possessed by every candidate for matriculation 
in university courses cannot be obtained in this 
country outside of the colleges. 



THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 17 

The chief part of the present college curriculum, 
therefore, cannot wisely be made optional, for it 
belongs on the other than the university side of 
the college ; it belongs to the secondary education. 
It is an indispensable part of that training which 
enables the youth, where universities do exist, 
to exercise such choice of subjects and teachers 
(LernfreiheW) as belongs to the university educa- 
tion. To make this part of the college education 
optional would not advance us one step toward 
converting the college into the genuine university. 
My objection — and it is an objection which seems 
to me unanswerable, except by raising greatly 
the standard of secondary education outside the 
college — my objection to making the entire col- 
lege curriculum elective is the necessary sequence 
of the facts. The freshman in the best American 
college, irrespective of his age and his wisdom, 
whether in his own eyes or in the eyes of others, 
has not had (except in rare instances) a secondary 
education of sufficient extent or thoroughness to 
fit him to enjoy the privileges of the university 
idea. Place the average Harvard or Yale student 
who has just passed his entrance examinations 
beside the German student who has just gone 
through with his Ahiturienten-Exameriy and com- 
pare the two. The latter is greatly superior to the 
former in respect of " general scientific culture ; " 
he is even superior to the average Harvard or 



18 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

Yale junior in this respect. However, we are 
rapidly approaching the time when we may make 
the secondary and relatively compulsory education 
end earlier than it now does — unless, alas! we 
lose our fast-ripening fruit by plucking it pre- 
maturely. 

Into the question of the means by which to 
secure and guide the pupils' choice, I shall not 
attempt to enter. To permit the student who is 
really in the secondary stage of education to make 
up from term to term, or year to year, whatever 
potpourri he will of elective courses, is perhaps of 
all methods least likely to prove satisfactory. It 
should also be noticed that the effort to secure 
the right kind and amount of work in the second- 
ary stage of education solely or chiefly by insisting 
upon " pass " examinations results in making 
" crammed " men instead of '' formed " men. Per- 
verse studet qui examinibus studet, Wolf used to 
declare. " The country of examinations," says 
M. Laboulaye, speaking of Austria, " is precisely 
that in which they do not work hard." But the 
remedy does not consist in abolishing all examina- 
tions, but rather in stimulating thorough teaching 
and in requiring from the pupil the preparation of 
daily and organically ordered tasks. 

The question as to the amount and kind of 
knowledges and disciplines which are necessary 
to a " liberal education " is, both in theory and in 



THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 19 

fact, closely connected with the development of 
the imiversity. No one would think of claiming 
that the university man ought not in all cases to 
be a man liberally educated. But one essential 
part of the idea and practice of a genuine univer- 
sity education is freedom of choice, on the pupil's 
part, as to the kind, if not the amount, of knowl- 
edges and disciplines in which he will attain his 
scientific culture. If, then, any particular knowl- 
edges and disciplines are to be required as neces- 
sary for a liberal education, the enforcement of 
this requirement belongs to the secondary rather 
than to the university stage of education. In 
other words, if one hold that a "liberal educa- 
tion " should comprise a certain knowledge of, and 
training in, any branches of learning, one must 
also hold that such branches of learning should be 
rigidly required of the pupil in the preparatory 
school and early years of his college course. For, 
as we have seen, the preparatory school and the 
early years of the college course have hitherto con- 
stituted, and do still constitute, our means of sec- 
ondary education in this country. 

I have no hesitation in stating my conviction 
that a goodly amount of certain kinds of knowl- 
edges and disciplines is necessary for every educa- 
tion worthy to enjoy the distinction of being called 
"liberal." Therefore I am compelled, also, to 
hold that both the main courses of secondary edu- 



20 THE HIGHER EDUCATIOK 

cation should require of all their pupils at least a 
certain amount of particular kinds of mental 
acquirement and culture, as a prerequisite to en- 
trance upon university studies. This amount should 
be notably greater than that now exacted for admis- 
sion to our highest-class colleges. In my judgment, 
it should be even somewhat greater than that now 
attained by the average junior in such colleges. 

It is at once objected, to the proposal to enforce 
a considerable amount of training in definite 
branches of learning and culture upon every pupil, 
that the number of modern sciences is far too 
great to require even a smattering of them all in 
the secondary education. And, it is added, a 
smattering of many sciences is equivalent to no 
science ; it is even positively injurious to the mind 
of the learner, while the attempt to enforce it makes 
a potpourri of education which is quite as unrea- 
sonable as that composed for themselves by some 
of those pupils who enjoy the freest exercise of 
choice. All this and more is undoubtedly true in 
objection to a certain way of working the principle 
of compulsion through the whole of the secondary 
education. But I have not urged that a certain 
large number of particular sciences should be en- 
forced in the secondary education of every pupil. 
I have only spoken of an amount and number of 
knowledges and disciplines which are requisite for 
such a secondary education as will serve for a 



THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 21 

foundation to a genuine university education. If 
there is any such amount and number of studies, 
then we cannot successfully develop the American 
university without settling this basis of require- 
ment upon which the development must rest. The 
settlement of this question will not take place, in 
fact and life, through the dictum of any one man 
— not even though that man be learned in the 
theory of education or in a position favorable for 
forcing his convictions upon others. The settle- 
ment of this question will come only in time (and 
perhaps in a long time), as a growing consensus 
of the opinions of those most competent in such 
matters. The opinion which I have to express 
shall be modestly expressed ; at most, it is only 
one man's opinion, except so far as it is in accord 
with the consensus of opinion already formed on 
the part of the most competent authorities. 

A " liberal education " seems to me to include, 
of necessity, a goodly amount of four great 
branches of human knowledge and discipline ; 
these are : language, including literature ; mathe- 
matics and natural science ; the science of man as 
an individual spirit who feels and thinks and acts 
in relation to the world of nature and of his 
fellows, and to God ; and the development of the 
human race in history. All education preparatory 
to the university should require these studies to 
have been already pursued liberally ; but the edu- 



22 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

cation of the university should leave every learner 
free to follow any special examples of one or more 
of them, according to his aptitude and choice. 
At the same time, even in the secondary education, 
a generous allowance should be made — as I have 
already said — for differences in aptitudes, in view 
of the twofold aim of all scientific culture. But 
this allowance should not be made subject to the 
choice of the pupil from term to term, or from 
year to year, — if for no other reason, still because 
a real continuity or organic and vital connection 
cannot be secured in this way for the different 
parts of the secondary education. Nor should the 
allowance be made in the form of a great variety 
of parallel courses among which the pupil must 
choose. This plan is open, though in less degree, 
to the same objection as the foregoing. Moreover, 
unless it is further limited, it does not secure thor- 
ough training in the four great branches of learn- 
ing and discipline of which I have spoken. And, 
finally, it inevitably results in the repetition, in 
the small, of the same attempt at compulsory im- 
parting of a smattering of many knowledges, of 
which the unrevised college curriculum in this 
country has been accused. The secondary educa- 
tion should, then, consist of required studies in 
all these four branches ; but it should be arranged 
in such a way as to be thorough in a very few ex- 
amples under each, and it should be divided into 



THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 23 

two great courses in which, by laying greater 
emphasis upon some one or more of the four, a 
generous allowance can be made for the pupil's 
aptitude. Further as to some of the details of this 
plan of a secondary education, which should be 
required as a necessary preparation for university 
studies, I shall speak later on. 

Substantial agreement upon the points hitherto 
discussed will insure a good measure of agreement 
upon those which are now to follow. There need 
be little dispute, since the subject has in late years 
received so thorough an historical examination, 
over the essential nature of a genuine university. 
Since the American university must, in any event, 
be a " university," although it may have certain 
peculiar features which may be called American, 
the noun will set limits to the adjective beyond which 
the peculiar features cannot grow. What, then, is 
the norm according to which, and the ideal toward 
which, we must develop our higher education? In 
other words, what is the true university idea ? 

Although intelligent persons need not dispute 
over the true idea of the university, there is current 
a great amount of unintelligent opinion on this 
subject. One prevalent thought obviously is, that 
a university is a school, or collection of schools, 
where a great lot of subjects are taught and a great 
crowd of pupils go. And there are elements of 
truth in this opinion. A number of faculties and 



24 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

free concourse of students, perhaps of many nations 
and from many places, are intimately connected 
with the university idea. But there are large 
schools, in this country and elsewhere, that are 
not universities ; and there have been great uni- 
versities with a relatively small number of students. 
The grade and method of the teaching, and the 
spirit and previous training of the students, are 
important factors in the university idea. Again, 
the universality of the university has been thought 
to consist in this, that the scope of its instruction 
should include all subjects ; thus the idea toward 
which the American institution should strive is 
held to be that of a place where anybody can 
come to learn anything that can be taught any- 
where. Now, historically considered, this view is 
absurd. The phrases in which the word universitas 
occurs, if thus interpreted, would (it has been 
pointed out) be equivalent to speaking of the uni- 
versity as " an institution for studying everything 
where they study nothing but law." Moreover, 
this interpretation of the word misses the spirit of 
the reality. For example, a school of veterinary 
surgery, or a school for learning to sing and to play 
the piano, may be a convenient adjunct or append- 
age of a university. But certainly neither of these 
schools can ever become an integral part of a 
genuine university. The study and teaching of 
comparative anatomy and physiology, or of zoology, 



THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 25 

including the structure of those valuable domestic 
animals, the horse and the cow, is a legitimate and 
important part of a university. But such study 
must constitute a part of general scientific culture, 
and be conducted as such. 

It is the sciefitijic spirit to which the university 
education primarily appeals, and which it encour- 
ages ; it is the large and free pursuit of science, 
as science, which it is bound to yield. This is 
true even of its professional schools. Even the 
study of surgery and medicine, or of theology, is 
primarily and pre-eminently scientific in the gen- 
uine university. For the same reason the call for 
chairs of " journalism,'^ ^' telegraphy," etc., in the 
American university, and the complaint that our 
university instruction does not teach men to speak 
French and Italian, are both quite out of place. 
Journalism and telegraphy can never properly 
enter into the instruction of the faculties of the 
university, for they can never be regarded as 
broadly inductive or speculative sciences. The 
modern languages have no place in university in- 
struction, except as they are used for the study 
of language and of literature, or are made the 
means of getting at other sciences through the 
works written in these languages. 

The history of the word " university " has now 
been very thoroughly investigated. This history 
throws no little light on the meaning of the word, 



26 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

the content of the idea. It is connected with the 
history of the term studium generale, which the 
word universitas came to supplant. "The name 
studium generale,'' says Savigny, "has been inter- 
preted to intend the whole collective body of the 
sciences, but incorrectly. . . . The name rather 
refers to the extent of the scope of operation of 
these institutions, which were intended for pupils 
of all countries." " It meant," says Professor 
Laurie, " a place where one or more of the liberal 
arts might be prosecuted, and which was open to 
all who chose to go there and study, free from the 
canonical or monastic obligations and control." 
It was, therefore, a school of high grade, where 
the spirit of freedom, in both teacher and pupil, 
prevailed. It afterward came to mean " both a 
school for liberal studies and a school open to all." 
The word universitas, on the other hand, was 
originally applied to any association of persons 
acting somewhat permanently together. It has 
been said that, in a papal rescript, vestra univer- 
sitas often means scarcely more than " all of you." 
As applied to a studium it came to mean a literary 
and incorporated community. But when these 
schools began to act under some express grant or 
character the two terms tended to become iden- 
tical ; and, finally, the word " university " came 
to take the other's place and to be exclusively 
used. 



THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 27 

It appears, therefore, that the primary thing 
in the university idea, both in time and in thought, 
is the association in a certain way of the teacher 
and his pupils. " Universities," says Dr. Dollin- 
ger, " originated as free associations of respected 
teachers and eager scholars." This does not, in- 
deed, sufficiently define the modern university, but 
it describes an essential and indestructible factor 
of it. Now, if we attempt further to describe the 
modern university in the light of the ancient idea, 
we find that it differs from the university of the 
Middle Ages chiefly with respect to the extent 
and variety of means in command for the reali- 
zation of this idea. The idea to be realized, and 
the general conception of the method necessary 
for its realization, remain the same. The idea to 
be realized is the highest scientific culture of the 
individual, and the method deemed necessary for 
its realization is the right association of the teacher 
and pupil. The one word which, beyond all others, 
describes this method is " freedom." 

The university teacher must have freedom in 
investigating and teaching; the pupil must have 
freedom in investigating and learning (^Lelirfreiheit 
and Lernfreiheif) . But freedom that does not 
degenerate into license is secured in the teacher 
by selecting a man of formed character, who has 
himself gone over the same path of patient, con- 
scientious, wide, and deep research by which he 



28 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

offers to lead the pupil. He still travels daily in 
this same path. The pupil, on his part, is free to 
choose his teacher and his subjects of research ; 
and his freedom is secured, as much as possible, 
against license by his having been prepared for 
freedom through the rigorous training, under law, 
of the secondary education, and through the ex- 
ample and inspiration of his teacher and of the 
entire community of which he forms a part. He 
must learn to "know from experience," as says 
Professor von Sybel, " what is the meaning of 
emancipation of the individual mind, scientific 
thoroughness, and free depth of thought." 

Such freedom in scientific research and teaching 
as the university uses to attain its end of the 
highest scientific culture is not, however, to be 
considered as separable from character. For, in 
the words of another German professor, " genuine 
science is the foundation of genuine freedom of 
spirit. Universities are, therefore, places for the 
formation of genuine freedom of spirit. They could 
not be this if they were directed in a one-sided 
way to the setting free and forming of intelligence. 
Freedom of spirit without the formation of char- 
acter is not conceivable. Only the unity of the 
formation of intelligence and character is genuine 
freedom of spirit." 

The true end of the university is, then, the high- 
est scientific culture of the individual, and its peculiar 



THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 29 

method is the most intelligent and highly trained 
freedom in research, in teaching, and in learning. 
This end and this method served at the beginning 
to distinguish the schools of the university order 
from the monastic and ecclesiastical schools ; they 
may fitly serve still as setting the ideal to which 
the American university must conform itself. 
Writers so widely divergent in their views and 
ways of thought as Matthew Arnold and Cardinal 
Newman are in substantial agreement as to the 
end at which the genuine university aims. This 
end is not, then, primarily the preparation of the 
pupil for any particular employment or profession, 
or even for being a good and useful citizen in 
general. University culture, does, indeed, tend 
strongly to produce good and useful service of 
every kind, and good and useful citizenship ; but 
this is its indirect tendency rather than its direct 
primary aim. For example, Professor Payne, in 
pleading for a science of education, reminds Eng- 
lishmen of Sir Bartle Frere's conviction that " the 
acknowledged and growing power of Germany is 
intimately connected with the admirable education 
which the great body of the German nation are 
in the habit of receiving ; " as well as of the 
declaration of a writer in the " Times " : "I think 
the maintenance of our commercial superiority is 
very much of a schoolmaster's question ; '' and of 
the statement of another writer that "the Ger- 



30 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

mans are outstripping us in the race for commer- 
cial superiority in the far East." These advantages 
of a liberal and university education, widely dif- 
fused, are not to be directly aimed at, for, like 
happiness, they are likely thus to be lost. They 
are to be secured as the indirect but sure result, 
so far as the university is concerned, of the at- 
tainment of its direct aim in the highest scientific 
culture of the greatest number possible, and espe- 
cially of all those placed in positions where they 
are trusted and followed by the people. 

Choice by the pupil as to what he will study, 
and as to w^iere and of whom and how far he will 
study it, belongs of right to the university idea. 
The university itself, however, must decide how 
much of secondary education the pupil shall have 
in order to admission to its freedom, and also how 
much of the highest scientific culture he must 
attain to win the mark of its approval as his alma 
mater. Beyond these restrictions, the more gen- 
erous the freedom permitted and encouraged the 
more worthy the compliance of the university with 
its own ideal. In so far as professional studies 
constitute an integral part of the instruction of 
the university, since the degree conferred upon 
the student of them is a guarantee of a certain 
amount of scientific culture of a particular kind, 
such studies may be prescribed. Yet even in these 
cases the same end and method must be adhered 



THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 31 

to with the utmost possible strictness. A theologi- 
cal seminary or medical school where freedom of 
instruction and learning is not regnant cannot 
become a proper part of a genuine university; it 
must remain of the nature of a sectional, or 
monastic and ecclesiastical, school. 

It is chiefly because the German universities 
most worthily realize the ideal of the highest free 
and scientific culture that they are confessedly 
superior to all others, — confessedly, on the part of 
the most thoughtful and well-informed educators 
under rival systems. ^' The danger of France," 
says M. Renan of its university, '' consists in this : 
we are becoming a nation of brilliant lecturers 
and fine writers." " It is," says Professor Patti- 
son, of England, '' as if our universities were 
destined only to teach in perfection the art of 
writing leading articles." No one, however, would 
for a moment think of implying what is involved 
in remarks like these with reference to the poorest 
German university; for every university in Ger- 
many, by its theory and custom alike, undertakes 
worthily to realize this admirable ideal. 

Supposing that those upon whom falls the task 
of developing the American university have grasped 
the right conception, the actual attainment of the 
ideal will inevitably encounter many difficulties. 
They have certain problems before them which 
are embodied in hard matter-of-fact. No amount 



32 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

of fine writing or generous planning will do away 
with the necessity of encountering these problems 
one by one, and of giving them a progressively 
better and better practical solution. The whole 
condition of education in this country, as it stands 
in the minds of the people and in the existing 
educational institutions, from highest to lowest, is 
concerned in the development of the university. I 
shall treat of only two of these problems. But 
these two are perhaps the most difficult, and they 
are so closely related to each other as to constitute 
in some respects one and the same problem. They 
are, the present condition and future development 
of the secondary education of the country, and the 
constitution and fate of the American college. 

No one would contend that the secondary edu- 
cation in this country is in a satisfactory condition. 
It is undoubtedly lacking in thoroughness, in bal- 
ance, in organic unity, and progressive character. 
By the " secondary " education I now mean such 
education, in addition to that primary education 
required of every one by the State, as the university 
must require for admission to its privileges. But 
— as has already been pointed out — the whole 
circuit of secondary education is at present, in this 
country, divided into two sections, one of which 
lies in courses preparatory for college or for the 
highest-class scientific school, and the other in the 
curriculum of the college or of the scientific school. 



THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 33 

This latter section is supposed to constitute the 
" higher '' or highest education. Neither of these 
two sections of what, in its entirety, virtually 
represents the secondary education of the country 
— the education which must be required in prepa- 
ration for the university — is in a satisfactory 
condition. 

No one who is acquainted with the subject would 
think of claiming that (with a few exceptions) the 
high-schools and academies and other places for 
fitting youth for college are doing their work in a 
satisfactory way. This fact, however, is by no 
means wholly due to fault or deficiency on their 
part ; indeed, education is so much of an organic 
unity that, if any of the stages or elements of it 
be defective, the deficiency is felt throughout all 
the subsequent growth of the entire organism. 
The secondary education is so unsatisfactory partly 
because of the condition of that primary education 
on which the secondary must be built. For, here 
again, no one acquainted with the subject would 
think of claiming that the public and private 
schools which start the process of education are 
in anything like a satisfactory condition. Probably 
the average public school of the primary grade is, 
on the whole, more effective than the average 
private school of the same grade. But what is the 
condition of the public schools of the primary 
grade in this country ? To speak the truth plainly, 

3 



34 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

they are in many cases too much managed by 
political powers that have no kind of fitness for 
the work, and the instruction is too much given 
by immature girls who have themselves received 
no thorough education and who, far too frequently, 
teach only as a makeshift until they can secure 
release by way of marriage. 

How, then, can the best and truly progressive 
secondary education be built upon a foundation 
laid by such hands under such circumstances ? 
Substantially the same things are true, however, 
of a considerable part of the secondary education 
itself; only in this case the managing political 
powers come into contact with certain subjects 
which strike them with somewhat of the mysteri- 
ous awe which belongs to all unknown subjects, 
and with a few teachers who make themselves felt 
as strong and thoroughly educated persons alone 
can. But, even in those subjects which are more 
especially selected as the knowledges and disci- 
plines whose acquaintance must be made in a gen- 
erous way before the youth can be ready for the 
freer and higher scientific culture of the university, 
the few really fit teachers must spend much of 
their time in teaching the pupil what he should 
have been taught long ago, but has not learned, 
and in helping him to unlearn a large part of 
what he has been taught. How can such a sec- 
ondary education compare for a moment with that 



THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 35 

given by teachers every one of whom has had a 
thorough education, and arranged in courses intel- 
ligently selected and organically united by the 
highest learning and skill ? 

The other section of the secondary education of 
the country— viz., that which lies within the curric- 
ulum of the college, or the highest-class scientific 
school — is also as truly, if not as largely and 
obviously, in an unsatisfactory condition. The 
best fitting-schools, whether academies or high- 
schools, are not infrequently better off, with respect 
to the character of their teachers, pupils, courses 
of study, and means for handling their courses, 
than are the greater part of our so-called colleges. 
Still, almost all the colleges are constantly making 
important changes for the better. No doubt the 
colleges of the first rank are, considering the mate- 
rial from which their pupils must be made, on 
account of the unsatisfactory condition of the early 
part of the secondary education, doing excellent 
work. I think it would not be extravagant to say 
that the American colleges are now giving to the 
average pupil a more thorough education than is 
bestowed upon any but their honor-men by any of 
the universities of Great Britain. But these col- 
leges, too, are prevented, by certain conditions 
which lie partly within and partly outside of them- 
selves, from doing the best work in the way of 
continuing the secondary education. Accordingly, 



36 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

the best approach to a true university education 
which they can make at present is by way of offer- 
ing certain elective courses as a part of the later 
years of the college curriculum, and by inducing a 
few pupils to gather for the purpose of pursuing 
so-called " post-graduate " courses. But in many 
cases (at least, with the exception of three or four 
institutions) these graduate (better so called than 
" post-graduate ") courses are without satisfactory 
beginning or ending. 

It is obvious, then, that the progressive reorgan- 
ization of our secondary education — a subject full 
of many difficult practical problems — is an indis- 
pensable prerequisite or, rather, accompaniment of 
the development of the university. But since part 
of this education now lies, and for a long time to 
come must lie, within the college curriculum, the 
reorganization of the secondary education is con- 
nected with the fate of the college itself. 

I will now briefly indicate the lines along which 
the work of reorganization should proceed. The 
entire secondary education should, as far as pos- 
sible, be made into a connected and organic whole ; 
and the aim should be to have it finished at the 
end of what is now sophomore year in the colleges 
of the first rank, or at the end of the entire required 
curriculum of the scientific schools of the first 
rank. It should be arranged in two great courses, 
both of which should be, in respect of all their 



THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 37 

studies — what, how much, and what order — care- 
fully prescribed. Both of these great courses 
should include all the four kinds of knowledges 
and disciplines which are considered as indispen- 
sable parts of a liberal education, and as necessary 
preparation for the range and freedom of university 
studies. But these knowledges and disciplines 
should be taught in different proportions by the 
two courses. The course which leans toward, or 
places the emphasis upon, language and the human- 
ities should comprise no less of mathematics, and 
even more of the physical and natural sciences, 
than it now contains. It should comprise more, 
not less, of the classical languages, of both Latin 
and Greek, and of the literature and antiquities 
which belong to these languages. But these lan- 
guages should be taught very differently from 
either that petty but strict way or that pretentious 
but loose way which have too much predominated 
hitherto. 

The other one of the two great courses in this 
bifurcated secondary education should place the 
emphasis upon mathematics and the physical and 
natural sciences. As a condition of entering the 
higher scientific school there should be required no 
less of mathematics and the natural sciences than 
is now required, but there should also be required 
much more knowledge of literature and of at least 
one of the classical languages. The thorough study 



38 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

of at least one of the classical languages should 
be an indispensable prerequisite of beginning the 
university education, because the study of language 
and literature is an indispensable requirement of 
beginning such education ; and no other languages 
than Latin and Greek offer anything like the same 
advantages for the study of language as the medium 
of the spirit, and for the study of the spirit that 
moves in such written language as has escaped the 
envy of time. 

It should not be objected to this plan that it will 
necessarily postpone too long the time at which the 
secondary education may be finished. For, given 
men of the highest cultivation to arrange and to 
teach the studies of the earlier portion of the 
secondary cultivation, and there will be no difficulty 
whatever in bringing youth, at the average age of 
seventeen, to the point where the college or scientific 
school now receives them. This is none too early 
for a boy to be as far advanced and as well trained 
as our students now are at the close of freshman 
year in the institutions of the highest rank. At 
least two years within college, and at least three 
years in the scientific school, will be required for a 
long time to come in order worthily to complete the 
secondary education. The aim and method of 
these years should be precisely the same as the aim 
and method of the preceding part of the secondary 
education ; the studies, also, should be largely the 
same. 



THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 39 

Into both of these great courses, whose primary 
aim is to teach the pupil to know himself and the 
world by enforcing " the general training and in- 
vigoration of the mind," there must enter at some 
time the other two of the four kinds of knowledge 
and discipline which compose a liberal education. 
These are, the knowledge of the individual human 
mind, and the knowledge of the development of the 
race in history. The former should include the 
subjects of logic, psychology, and ethics ; the latter 
should comprise an outline sketch of general history 
and a more special study of one or more epochs or 
nations, in order that the pupil may have some real 
experience of the spirit and method of genuine 
historical study. Both courses of the secondary 
grade should include these subjects, though possibly 
in different proportions. With the right arrange- 
ment and better teaching of the entire secondary 
education, there would be no insuperable difficulty 
in accomplishing at the average age of nineteen or 
twenty all that I have indicated as necessary in 
preparation for the university education. Indeed, 
the pupil thus trained should be quite as well fitted 
for that freedom in research and learninar which is 
the way to the highest scientific culture as the 
average graduate, at present, of our best scientific 
schools and colleges. 

During all these years of secondary training no 
pretence should be encouraged in the pupil that he 



40 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

is accumulating new and rare knowledge. Both 
teacher and pupil should understand that the latter 
is under the former as his pcedagogus^ to lead him 
to the higher freedom which is coming. Any 
attempt prematurely to introduce the methods of 
the university education, or to lower the standard 
of the education preparatory to it, will be prejudicial 
to the development of the true ideal of the uni- 
versity. For example, to lower the standard of 
minimum requirement for admission to college will 
have the effect of degrading the high-schools and 
academies which now fit youth for college, and of 
either diminishing the whole amount of the second- 
ary education or crowding more of it into the 
college curriculum. It will doubtless, also, increase 
the inefficiency and carelessness of both pupils and 
teachers in reaching even this lowered standard. 
The similar attempt at Oxford resulted so that, in 
1863, Mr. 0. Ogle wrote to the vice-chancellor : 
'' The standard has been sensibly lowered, and 
the proportion of plucks has sensibly increased." 
Moreover, to convert the college into an imitation 
of the university — especially in its earlier years, 
when its pupils and instruction are not, and cannot 
be of the university order — • will secure only the 
temporary satisfaction which the bestowal of titles 
sometimes brings ; it will postpone rather than 
hasten the realization of a worthy ideal. 

The second difficult practical problem which 



THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 41 

must be solved in order to the development of the 
American university is the fate of the American 
college. How this problem must be solved has al- 
ready in part been indicated. Such of the educa- 
tion now required by the college as can justify its 
claims to be required at all in preparation for the 
advanced and free scientific culture of the uni- 
versity must be retained as a prescribed part of 
the secondary education. Such of the college cur- 
riculum as is now modelled after the university 
idea must be withdrawn from this curriculum, re- 
modelled, and united with the so-called " post- 
graduate " courses ; and the whole thus formed 
must be enlarged and raised to the standard of 
this idea. It will at once be objected that this plan 
will divide and alter the present constitution of the 
American college. I reply, precisely so ; this is 
what must come to pass in the development of the 
university. But let it be observed that the destined 
passing away of the present constitution of the 
American college in no respect detracts from its 
past services or alters the propriety of adhering 
closely to its best elements in their present com- 
bination until the better arrangement of both our 
secondary and our higher education can be secured. 
Nor is a change of the present constitution of the 
college equivalent to an abandonment of the idea 
of college education. 

There can be no doubt that the curriculum of 



42 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

the American college is to-day in a condition of 
exceedingly unstable equilibrium. Such a con- 
dition is by no means wholly due to intelligent ob- 
jections to this curriculum ; but neither is it due to 
wholly irrational objections. The amount and kind 
of studies now required by this institution can by 
no means be clearly justified. The permission to 
elect, with respect to the amount and kind of 
studies to which it applies, is plainly given in many 
cases as a matter of accident or of temporary con- 
venience rather than as a conclusion based on 
reason and experience. The result is that the 
present position of the curriculum of the American 
college is anomalous ; and the higher the grade of 
the college whose curriculum we examine, the more 
anomalous is its character. Such a condition can- 
not be regarded as anything better than the best 
temporary expedient, — a creditable makeshift de- 
vised in the effort to advance, but not to advance too 
fast or in the wrong direction. Inevitably, those 
institutions which have a,dmitted most of the 
university principle into their college courses have 
obtained the largest mixture of the secondary and 
the truly higher education. 

At the same time that a variety of elective courses 
has been introduced into the college curriculum of 
our institutions of the first rank, the same institu- 
tions have been making the effort to develop a true 
university education outside of and farther up than 



THE AMERICAN UMVERSITY 43 

the college curriculum. In other words, they have 
instituted graduate courses open only to those who 
have the requisite amount of secondary education. 
The development of these graduate courses has 
encountered several almost insuperable obstacles. 
The most hard and obstinate of these obstacles are 
the following: the prevalent low esteem of the 
highest truly scientific culture ; the excessive 
estimate of what is called " practical " in education 
— of bread-and-butter studies {Brodstudien') ; the 
poor condition of the secondary education, and so 
the impossibility of offering the best to even the 
graduates of most of our colleges ; the impatience 
of our American youth and of their guardians, that 
is quite opposed to that quiet continuous growth 
which the noblest learning and mental discipline 
must undergo, etc. 

It appears that those colleges which have found 
themselves in condition to enlarge greatly the 
university part of the college curriculum are, as 
a rule, the ones which have also done most to pro- 
vide graduate instruction. But thus far even these 
institutions have been obliged to leave the two 
halves, as it were, of a possible university instruc- 
tion, separated by the graduation from all study of 
most of their pupils at the close of the college 
senior year. These institutions must as rapidly 
and completely as possible unite the two thus far 
separate halves into a unity of the university 



44 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

kind ; for it is to these institutions that the country 
should look for the development of the genuine 
university. 

The methods by which the accomplishment of 
this combination of the post- and the aw^e-graduate 
elements of the university shall be brought about 
cannot, of course, be described speculatively in de- 
tail ; but some hints, concerning them, and concern- 
ing their probable working, are clearly in place here. 
I wish, in the first place, then, to call attention again 
to the inseparable connection which exists between 
the development of the secondary education, both 
within and without the college curriculum, and the 
management of that curriculum so as to develop 
the university education. And now let us suppose 
that the earlier part of the secondary education 
has been rearranged and thoroughly well taught ; 
it will thus become perfectly feasible to put into 
the last two years of this secondary education — 
the two years corresponding to the freshman and 
sophomore in our colleges of the first rank — all 
the required work in physics and natural science, 
in history and literature, in logic, psychology, and 
ethics, which constitutes the staple of the instruc- 
tion at present given in the junior and senior years 
of the college curriculum. Let the first five or 
six years of the secondary education be well ar- 
ranged and well taught, upon the basis of a sound 
primary education, and let the last two or three 



THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 45 

years of this education comprise subjects now 
reasonably required in our college curriculum, and 
let these last years be organically connected with 
the preceding five or six years, and then it will 
be perfectly feasible to prepare the average Ameri- 
can youth at nineteen or twenty for beginning 
a true university education. Indeed, let fche sec- 
ondary education be properly reformed and duly 
elevated, and then the youth who has well accom- 
plished it will be better fitted to enter upon a uni- 
versity education than is, at present, the average 
youth of twenty-two who has just graduated from 
a first-class American college. And the youth of 
twenty, thus well educated in the secondary stage, 
will be more likely to desire to have a university 
education. If he sees before him the offer of three 
or four more years of training and research, in 
subjects and under teachers that he may select 
with perfect freedom, he will probably wish to 
accept that offer. If he or his guardians have 
wealth or a competency, he and they will certainly 
be more ready to spend the money as well as the 
time upon his higher education, when it becomes 
clearer in this country what the best scientific cul- 
ture means for the individual and for society. 
If he and his friends be poor, he will be more 
likely to be willing to struggle hard and to deny 
himself, somewhat as large numbers of German 
students do, in order to enjoy this highest scien- 



46 THE HIGHER EDUCATIOlSr 

tific culture. The choicest and most promising 
of these youths thus engaged in a university edu- 
cation may also be expected to do creditable origi- 
nal work, and thus enrich the scientific knowledge 
and literature of the country; and to institute 
valuable courses of instruction, and thus enrich 
the teaching of the university. And, in my judg- 
ment, it will be far worthier and more profitable 
for the country to raise at first a few, and then 
a larger and larger number, by the steps of a 
thorough, enforced secondary education, to the level 
of a genuine university culture than to bring the 
name of university culture to the level of those who 
are really only low down in the secondary stage of 
education. 

This department of more general philosophical 
and scientific studies, to which the educated youth 
of twenty is invited, should be placed parallel with 
the courses in the professional schools in order to 
form the whole circuit of university education. 
Such relations should be instituted and maintained 
between it and the more strictly professional 
schools of the university as that each shall assist 
and enrich the other. In this way, on the basis 
of a secondary education attained at the close of 
what corresponds to the present sophomore year, 
the young man in the advanced academical courses 
should have the privilege, not only of selecting 
such of these courses as are most nearly akin to 



THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY 47 

his future professional life, but also of beginning 
the professional courses themselves. The young 
man in the professional school should also have 
the opportunity of enlarging the scope of his pro- 
fessional studies by free access to all the more 
strictly academical, the philosophical and scien- 
tific, courses. 

But the question must be answered: What of 
the youth who has chosen to gratify his supposed 
aptitude for the knowledges and disciplines that 
deal with external nature, and who has therefore 
chosen the other one of the two courses into which 
the secondary education was supposed to become 
bifurcated ? Is he to meet in the university 
courses on an equality his fellow-student who has 
gone by the other path and passed through the 
college curriculum ? Yes ; but only in case he 
and his teachers have complied with certain con- 
ditions. In other words, the secondary education 
now given by the scientific courses in the high- 
schools and academies, and by the succeeding 
courses in the scientific schools of the first rank, 
like those connected with Yale and Harvard uni- 
versities, must enlarge and strengthen and amend 
its curriculum in order to fit its graduates for a 
true university education. It must enlarge and 
strengthen itself by requiring of its pupils much 
more of literary, linguistic, historical, and philo- 
sophical study, without diminishing at all its re- 



48 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

quirements in mathematics and in the physical 
and natural sciences. It must amend the spirit 
of its instruction by putting away all contempt for 
classical and historical and philosophical learning, 
and all that pride which leads men to refuse the 
name of " science " to any knowledge but their 
own. Here, again, it appears that the problem of 
the development of the university in this country is 
largely the problem of securing a satisfactory sec- 
ondary education. 

Finally, it is plain that the development of the 
university in this country involves a marked and 
permanent differentiation into two classes of the 
higher educational institutions now in existence. 
The vast majority of the " colleges," so called, in 
this country should be content to remain colleges — 
that is, places which make no pretence to carry 
men beyond such secondary education as is pre- 
paratory to a genuine university education. To 
improve the secondary education which they im- 
part, and to make it somewhat worthy of the idea 
connected in the minds of our people with the 
word " collegiate," may well satisfy their highest 
ambition. On the other hand, there can be no 
doubt that the great majority of the institutions 
now called " universities " should renounce both 
the name and the pretence of the thing. Only 
those few institutions that have already acquired 
large resources of famous men and established 



THE AMERICAN UNIVEKSITY 49 

courses and equipment for the Iiighest instruction, 
and that can hope to draw from their own and 
from other colleges a sufficient constituency of 
pupils already trained in a thorough secondary 
education, should strive to develop themselves 
into universities. Large means for scientific re- 
search — libraries, museums, observatories, etc. 

are indispensable for this development. A com- 
plement of professional schools, with their facul- 
ties, is also, if not indispensable, at least highly 
important. I venture to assert that not more than 
a half-dozen (?) universities should be developed 
in the entire country during the next generation, 
and that no new institutions to bear that name 
should, on any grounds whatever, be founded. 

It is within lines such as I have drawn above, 
and by keeping in view the right high ideal while 
also grasping with a firm hand the hard practical 
conditions and limitations of the ideal, that the 
American university should be developed. All the 
details no man need undertake to arrange before- 
hand with authority. But every effort may guard 
against certain errors. And on this point let us 
recall the significant saying of Lotze : " There are 
no errors which take such firm hold of men's minds 
as those in which inexactness of thought and lofty 
feeling combine to produce a condition of enthusi- 
astic exaltation." 



THE PLACE OF THE FITTING-SCHOOL 
IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 



THE PLACE OF THE FITTING-SCHOOL 
IN AMERICAN EDUCATION 

There can be no doubt that the present gener- 
ation is experiencing a marked disturbance of 
opinion and practice in the matter of education. 
Other periods of sharp and sudden revolutionary 
action have occurred in this, as in all human 
affairs. But the reasons for the marked character 
of the present disturbance are not difficult of state- 
ment. We must indeed recognize a current wide- 
spreading dissatisfaction with everything belonging 
to the existing order, which, since its sources are 
somewhat hidden, we may attribute to the Zeitgeist 
— the inexplicable or unexplained mental drift of 
the age. But the enormous recent growths of all 
the sciences, the strong practical tendencies which 
urge the cry for what bears visible fruit in educa- 
tion, and the extremely varied interests represented 
in modern culture, are the more obvious causes of 
the prevalent disturbance. 

Thus far it has been the schools of the higher 
and the highest learning which have chiefly felt 
the pressure of the oncoming of the so-called " new 



54 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

education." Under this pressure these schools 
have largely changed the nature, increased the 
amount, and developed in variety the studies of 
their curricula. But the signs are only too plainly 
manifest that similar demands will be made upon 
the schools which lie lower down in the stratum 
of the secondary education. 

Indeed, as it seems to me, upon no other stage 
of education is the burden of making all things 
" new " destined to fall more heavily than upon 
the fitting-schools of the country. By "fitting- 
schools " I mean such as jit pupils for the colleges 
and first-class scientific schools ; and any educa- 
tional institution or more private enterprise, in so 
far as it undertakes such preparatory work, is en- 
titled to be called by this name. The intermediate 
position which every such school is, by its very 
nature, compelled to occupy cannot fail to confront 
it in the near future with a number of most serious 
problems. Back of the fitting-school, or rather at 
its base, lies the primary education, with all its 
many flaws, accumulated follies, and marked de- 
ficiencies. In this earlier stage we can expect 
little yielding to the pressure of the new ideas of 
compass, variety, and choice in education. The 
limits of change possible in such matters for the 
primary schools of the country will remain com- 
paratively small. No variety of elective courses, 
and very little attempt at increased breadth, can 



THE FITTING-SCHOOL 55 

enter here. Whatever improvement is made at 
this stage must simply be in the way of securing 
more thorough and genial training of the child in 
the few subjects with which all education begins, 
and which every pupil is alike required to know. 
These schools, then, may be spoken of as the 
nether-stones of our mill of education ; they will 
stand immovable on the lower side of the instruc- 
tion of the preparatory schools. Or, to change the 
figure of speech, they will entail upon the prepara- 
tory schools all the deficiencies, follies, and weak- 
nesses, of which they are themselves seized. 

I have just spoken of the primary schools, with 
their imperfect but very stable work of laying the 
foundations of a common education, as the nether 
mill-stone on which the fitting-schools have to lie. 
But on the other side are the colleges and higher 
scientific schools ; these have for years been stead- 
ily increasing the gross amount of their demands 
upon the fitting-schools, and now, under the influ- 
ence of the new ideas of education, they seem 
likely to impose yet heavier burdens by a corre- 
sponding increase in the variety of these demands. 
The higher institutions may, then, not inaptly, be 
compared to the upper mill-stone in the educa- 
tional mill. What is to prevent the preparatory 
schools from being ground fine between the nether 
and the upper stones ? And yet between the two is 
the natural and only place for these schools. 



66 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

Their difficulty is also greatly increased by the 
fact that they can scarcely hold most of their 
pupils long enough to do a thoroughly good work 
with them. The fact that the pupils come crude 
and unformed to such schools, even in all matters 
of the most elementary training, is coupled with 
the greatest haste on the part of the same pupils 
to pass through the intermediate stage of educa- 
tion, into the freer, larger, and more varied intel- 
lectual (and social and athletic) activity of the 
college. 

And now let us consider separately each one of 
the three kinds into which the general grade of 
schools called " preparatory " may be divided. 
The case of the public high-school as a fitting- 
school is, under the present circumstances, exceed- 
ingly peculiar. Indeed, the very existence in the 
future of the public high-school in this country, 
not only as a fitting-school, but also in any shape 
whatever, cannot be predicted with much confi- 
dence. But at present the attitude and relations 
of the different schools of this grade toward the 
colleges vary greatly. In a few public schools the 
preparation given for college or for the scientific 
school is as good as can be obtained anywhere ; in 
a somewhat larger number the influences are on 
the whole in favor of a truly liberal education. 
But in a very large and, I fear, increasing number 
of cases, especially in the West, the influence of 



THE FITTING-SCHOOL 67 

the public schools is decidedly adverse to a truly 
liberal education. In some places the teachers of 
the public schools constitute as a body a kind of 
organized monopoly, secretly or actively employed 
in keeping out of all vacated positions every col- 
lege-bred man, and exercising all possible influence 
to depreciate a college education. I have person- 
ally been cognizant of a system of public education, 
inaugurated in a large city, where, in the higher 
grade of instruction the pupils were taught at the 
public expense to dissect cats, to accept in toto 
Bain's psychology, and to despise the Christian 
religion ; but not one of them could learn a word 
of Greek without the expense of a private tutor. 

With the present uncertainty touching the ulti- 
mate fate of the high-school before my mind, I 
have only two remarks to make upon its use as a 
fitting-school. First: The tax-payers and voters 
are not likely to consent much further to multiply 
the variety of optional courses to be taught in the 
high-schools at the public expense. Second: If 
they are not forced by political influences greatly 
to restrict the amount and variety of instruction 
which they at present aim to impart, the high- 
schools of the better quality in the larger places 
will probably see the propriety of continuing in- 
struction in the classical languages. 

In speaking of the public high-school as a fitting- 
school, it is not necessary to espouse either of two 



58 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

tenable theories as to the basis on which our sys- 
tem of public education rests. If this system rests 
solely on the principle of self-preservation, one 
must hold that the high-schools of the country, as 
at present constituted, have no right to existence 
whatever. It may be argued that the preservation 
of the state requires that every citizen should have 
an elementary education ; but it cannot be shown 
that to impart a little algebra, and a little chem- 
istry, and a little music, and a little drawing, etc., 
is a measure of public safety. 

But suppose one to hold (as I have little hesita- 
tion in holding) that states, like noble individuals, 
and like God himself, should not be satisfied with 
doing what is necessary to the bare preservation of 
existence. Let our theory be, that states, in the 
long run and wide extent of their being, should 
strive by collective action to nurture intelligence, 
intellectual variety, and beauty of multiform and 
high development, in as many as may be of their 
citizens. This they should do, both because it 
pays and because it is intrinsically noble. Let the 
theory of public education be a generous paternal 
theory. But even with this theory the work of ex- 
pensive specialization of education at the public 
cost cannot be carried beyond a certain limit. 
That limit, it is the opinion of most thoughtful 
and observing persons, has been already reached, 
and perhaps passed. Still, it is my contentioij that 



THE FITTING-SCHOOL 69 

if the generous theory is to triumph, and the highly 
specialized high-school is to stay, no other of its 
courses have any better right to remain than those 
in the classical languages. There is no good rea- 
son why a high-school should teach its pupils to 
dissect cats, to accept Bain's or any other psychol- 
ogy, to read music and draw a little, etc., and at 
the same time banish Greek and Latin from its 
curriculum. 

The case of the largest and best-equipped acade- 
mies needs, in the prospect of largely increased 
demands that they shall furnish a more extended 
and varied preparation for college, scarcely any de- 
tailed consideration. Such schools will probably 
in time succeed in meeting well whatsoever de- 
mands are made upon them. If it should become 
necessary, they may perhaps develop into minia- 
ture colleges with curricula composed of several 
score of different courses, among which the youths 
who frequent them, of ages from twelve to eigh- 
teen, may exercise their option. That they would 
in this way really lay more satisfactorily the foun- 
dations of a truly liberal education, or even of one 
likely to fit men for success in the different busi- 
nesses and professions, I cannot believe. And 
surely the burden of meeting these new demands 
would be very great, — too great for more than a 
very few of the more fortunate fitting-schools to 
succeed in carrying it. 



60 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

The case of those more private enterprises which 
have hitherto furnished some of the best candi- 
dates for admission to our colleges requires even 
less of detailed consideration. This class of fit- 
ting-schools simply cannot comply with the condi- 
tions required by the full and consistent develop- 
ment of the " new education." The demand for 
instruction in German or French staggers a school 
of this kind ; the demand for a curriculum includ- 
ing various percentages of physics, chemistry, more 
advanced mathematics, etc., would destroy it. 

In general it is pretty obvious that the evolution 
of the new education, if it goes on in the directions 
in which its present indications are pointing, will 
bring upon the fitting-schools of the country such 
a severe application of the laws of natural selection 
that only a few of the fittest to survive will really 
succeed in surviving. At the same time, if they 
all survived, and were ultimately found reorganized 
in a form best to exhibit the type followed by this 
process, the result would, in my judgment, be far 
from satisfactory. For the true principle of the 
secondary education does not call for the offer of a 
great variety of studies^ either prescribed or elective^ 
hut for a thorough and long -continued discipline in 
a very few judiciously selected and representative 
studies. 

The relief which the fitting-schools require, in 
order to attain their true place in the system of 



THE FITTING-SCHOOL 61 

American higher education, must come mainly 
from the accomplishment of two results. The first 
of these is the careful organization of our entire 
system of education, upon the basis of an improved 
primary education, and in accordance with the 
principle of a natural twofold division of courses 
of prescribed studies in the secondary education. 
The second is a closer and more intelligent alli- 
ance between the two parts of the secondary 
education. 

One thing greatly to be desired and striven after, 
as affording needed relief to the preparatory 
schools, is an improvement in the primary educa- 
tion. No one acquainted with the facts needs to 
be told how faulty is the knowledge of the most 
elementary subjects possessed by the average child 
of twelve or fourteen, whether he has- been trained 
in a public or a private school. How blundering 
is his use, in speech, reading, or writing, of his 
mother-tongue! With how little real notion 
of what our good planet is, in structure and 
aspect, has he learned long lists of unpronounce- 
able names of mountains, rivers, and cities — not 
to say hamlets and villages ! For how many years 
has he struggled with the fundamental mysteries 
of number, and spent his time wearisomely in 
doing " sums," the like of which are not to be 
found in real life upon this earth, and, as we trust, 
not in the heavens above ! And yet how often 



62 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

does he stand stupid before the first demand to 
answer any practical question in arithmetic that 
requires a new combination of the " rules " ! 

As touching the general interest of the people, 
and the salvation of the nation — so far as its 
education tends to its salvation — nothing is more 
important than the proper and efficient conduct of 
the primary education ; and, as well, in the partic- 
ular interest of the preparatory schools, few things 
are more important. 

It is, however, to a systematic arrangement of 
all the courses of instruction taught in the years 
of the secondary education that I look with most 
confidence for lessening the difficulties and enlarg- 
ing the success of the fitting-school. At present 
there appears to be no little danger of bringing the 
same trials and defects upon all the work of our 
academies and high-schools as those under which 
fell the orthodox college curriculum of some years 
since. But are there no principles which may 
enable us to classify the bewildering number of 
possible studies, and thus to select a few which 
shall alone serve to form the staple of a sound 
secondary education ? I believe that such prin- 
ciples exist. 

There are four classes of subjects about which 
the human mind strives to obtain, and a wise 
system of education aims to impart, a truly scien- 
tific knowledge. These are : first, the world of 



THE FITTING-SCHOOL 63 

" nature," so called in the restricted meaning of 
the term; next, language, as the vehicle of the 
mind, and that product of choice thought and 
language which is literature ; third, man as mind, 
with his ethical, religious, aesthetical, social, and 
political being all included ; and fourth, human 
history, as the complex resultant of all the inter- 
acting forces involved in the first three classes of 
subjects. Now the secondary education should 
impart a goodly amount of clear knowledge of 
each of these four great subjects ; and, of course, 
also of the peculiar mental discipline derived from 
the pursuit of each. 

It should be at once admitted, however, that the 
aptitudes and tastes of human beings differ, and 
that some of their differences are very persistent, 
radical, and sure perpetually to recur among great 
multitudes of individuals. It can perhaps scarcely 
be claimed that men are born with an aptitude and 
a taste for geology, for astronomy, or for psychol- 
ogy and ethics. But it seems likely, if not certain, 
that some men do more naturally incline to those 
pursuits which require objective observation, to 
the studies of external nature, and others to the 
studies of the mind as known in self-consciousness 
or as expressing itself in language. This fact 
suggests, at least, the necessity for a bifurcation of 
the prescribed studies of the secondary stage of 
education. Not far from the beginning of this 



64 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

stage, therefore, I would have an opportunity pro- 
vided for a division in the courses of prescribed 
study. On the one hand, I would have the em- 
phasis laid upon the study of language and of the 
so-called humanities ; on the other hand, the 
emphasis should be laid upon mathematics and 
the natural and physical sciences. 

But one thing more of this same general kind is 
sadly needed. Perhaps the most serious defect of 
the system of liberal education now prevalent in 
this country is its lack of a truly progressive char- 
acter. It is full of fits and starts. It is too dis- 
jointed and fragmentary. This is partly because 
there are no settled principles of procedure, fixing 
the order and amounts of the studies ; and partly 
because there is no power which can secure 
teachers that know precisely what they are ex- 
pected, fitted, and permitted to teach. The conse- 
quence is that the different years of school-life too 
much resemble the different successive sessions of 
our legislatures. Milton somewhere describes the 
process of legislation as " hatching a lie with the 
heat of jurisdiction." Fortunately, the process 
also consists in killing the brood of lies already 
hatched by previous legislation. Now the process 
of education in this country is by no means so 
bad in this regard as the process of legislation ; 
but in certain respects the former too much re- 
sembles the latter. 



THE FITTING-SCHOOL 65 

Let it now be supposed that we have so far made 
progress toward the millennium as to have some 
of these evils largely remedied. And surely this 
is not an extravagant or hopeless supposition. 
The preparatory schools would then receive their 
pupils, thoroughly well instructed in certain ele- 
mentary branches, at the average age of twelve or 
thirteen years ; that is to say, their pupils would 
already read, write, and spell in the English lan- 
guage easily and correctly ; they would have fin- 
ished arithmetic ; they would have learned the 
principal facts touching the structure and position 
of the earth as a planet, and touching the natural 
and political divisions of its surface ; they would 
be familiar with the outlines of the history of their 
own country. The instruction of the preparatory 
school should then extend over a period of about 
six years more ; that is, from about the age of 
twelve to about the age of eighteen. It should be 
thoroughly organized, not with a view to furnish a 
large number of courses, whether prescribed or 
elective, but with a view to impart a thorough and 
progressive training in a few great and representa- 
tive subjects. It should be bifurcated so as to pre- 
pare men with a general scientific culture which 
places the emphasis either upon a knowledge of lan- 
guage and the humanities, or upon a knowledge of 
mathematics and the facts and laws of nature. 

In the foregoing way it would be possible, I con- 
5 



66 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

tend, for the fitting- schools of the country to 
accompUsh much more and better work than is 
now possible. Indeed, if the results reasonable to 
hope for in the future were secured, these schools 
could send out their pupils as well educated at 
eighteen as they are now at twenty, that is, after 
being two years in college. Thus at least two 
entire years could be saved in the secondary 
education. 

The valid objection to our present system of 
education, that it compels young men to wait too 
long before entering upon their more strictly 
university or professional studies, would be ob- 
viated in this way. The study of theology, law, 
and medicine, or that free pursuit of science which 
accords with the university idea, could thus begin 
at the average age of twenty, instead of twenty- 
two or twenty-four, as the case now is. But the 
university and professional education would then 
rest on a much better basis than is now laid at 
a later age. Moreover, the two or more years 
of time which would be saved could go where 
they ought to go — namely, into university and 
professional studies. This would give us far 
better-equipped teachers, physicians, lawyers, and 
clergymen. 

There is one other matter of practical impor- 
tance which needs much careful attention in order 
to lessen the burdens and increase the efficiency 



THE FITTING-SCHOOL 67 

of the fitting schools of the country. A closer 
and more intelligent alliance must somehow be 
effected between the earlier and the later parts 
of the secondary education. As the case now 
stands, this is equivalent to saying that the col- 
leges and advanced scientific schools on the one 
hand, and the preparatory schools on the other 
hand, must enter into a closer and more intelligent 
alliance. The connections existing in reality be- 
tween the instruction of the last years of the pre- 
paratory school and the instruction of the first 
years of college are much more intimate than 
those existing between any other parts of our en- 
tire system of education. As the courses of instruc- 
tion in almost all our colleges are now arranged, 
and as they probably will be arranged for a long 
time to come, the youth passes from the prepara- 
tory school to the college with no break whatever 
in the character of his education. He continues 
the study of the same subjects, in about the same 
way, for two years or more longer. His staple 
daily tasks in the earlier part of the secondary 
education were the classical languages and math- 
ematics ; they are the same now that he has 
achieved the distinction of passing under the col- 
lege curriculum. 

And indeed there is no good reason why the 
character of the instruction should be greatly 
changed when the youth enters college. There is 



68 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

nothing magical about the age of eighteen, or 
about the fact that the youth has got into a school 
called by a different name from the one he has 
left. The real determining factors in the question 
of the subjects and the method of his study are 
the amount of his maturity and of his general 
scientific training. 

The details of an orderly and progressive ar- 
rangement of the entire course of study during the 
years of the secondary education might fitly occupy 
the attention of a committee of experts. Such a 
committee should be chosen in part from the col- 
leges, and in part from those fitting-schools that 
are most influential and most interested in the 
improvement of classical and scientific study. 
Any plan proposed by such a committee would be 
an incitement, though not a mandate, to better 
things. Moreover, it would be likely in time to 
commend itself to other colleges and fitting-schools 
not participating at first in the plan. It might 
result in affording great relief to the fitting- 
schools, and in largely increasing the efficiency of 
their instruction. 

In conclusion it is well to notice that some such 
plan as has just been proposed seems to afford the 
only rational relief obtainable from the growing 
evils of that system of " cramming " which every- 
where prevails in modern education. A " bitter 
cry " is being raised on all sides, not of the " out- 



THE FITTING-SCHOOL 69 

cast" but of those who are gathered into our 
elaborate, hard-working educational institutions. 
Parents, teachers, pupils, all join in the crj. The 
excessive specialization of modern life has invaded 
the schools of the land from lowest to highest. 
There is no doubt of the existence of a certain 
evil, and of more or less suffering under it. But 
whence is the remedy to come ? Not from fewer 
hours of study per day, or months per year, or 
years spent during the entire process of education. 
Certainly not from attempting to impart a yet 
more shallow knowledge of the great number of 
studies already entering into the courses of instruc- 
tion in all our schools. The remedy must be 
sought in the removal of such of those causes of 
the evil as admit of removal; and these are mainly 
two : the variety of subjects unnecessarily crowded 
into the few years devoted to education, and the 
poor character of the instruction. 

That much of the school-time of youth is now 
wasted through excessive variety and injudicious 
arrangement of the studies, and on account of 
unskilful teaching, is proved, alas ! only too well, 
by the experience of every intelligent observer. 
An illustration or two may not be out of place at 
this point. Not long since, an educated man made 
the attempt to assist his son in the preparation of 
the daily lesson in English Grammar. For some 
time the boy, who was twelve years of age, and 



70 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

nearly ready for the high-school, had been settling 
into a condition of despair over this particular 
study. Meanwhile the boy's use of the English 
language had been, under the influence of the pub- 
lic school, steadily deteriorating. After rummag- 
ing a big text-book for more than an hour the 
father succeeded in discovering among the so- 
called " exceptions " what he considered the prob- 
ably correct answers to most of the questions 
composing the lesson of the following day. These 
questions were afterward taken to a distinguished 
scholar, a student and teacher of language and 
philology. He could not answer them in any terms 
which would have satisfied the teacher of the boy 
or the author of the text-book on Grammar. They 
were then shown to the very highest authority on 
such subjects to be found in this country, to a 
gentleman whose attainments in the science of 
language are celebrated by the world of scholars. 
His answer to these questions was a strain of un- 
mixed invective against teacher, text-book, and 
school-system which could tolerate such wasteful 
folly in instruction. 

But snch waste is by no means confined to the 
primary stage of education. Some years ago a 
professor of Greek in an Eastern institution vis- 
ited the recitation-room of a Western college, 
where a class of sophomores were reading a play 
of Aristophanes. Only one of the class — and this 



THE FITTING-SCHOOL 71 

one a young lady from Massachusetts — made 
any serious attempt at a correct translation of the 
short lesson for the day. The teacher was evi- 
dently much embarrassed by the presence of the 
visitor, and at a loss as to what should be done 
with his pupils or their lesson. After considerable 
floundering he seemed to gather his classical learn- 
ing for a supreme effort. This resulted in his pro- 
pounding with due solemnity the following ques- 
tion : " Is the change from the stem math to the 
stem manth a phonetic or a dynamic change ? " 
The class stared, but remained silent ; the teacher 
looked even more embarrassed than before ; the 
Eastern professor broke into a cold sweat through 
fear that the question might be referred to him — 
for he could not have answered it. The same 
question was asked a second time with deliberate- 
ness appropriate to so grave an inquiry ; the re- 
sult was unchanged. Then, after another long 
pause, this episode terminated with a solemn assev- 
eration from the teacher : " It is uncertain." And 
so the hour dragged on. In all probability, no 
member of this class had been so trained as to 
recognize infallibly the simplest grammatical con- 
struction, or to translate at sight the simplest pas- 
sages with a fair degree of accuracy. 

Finally : we have no right to flatter ourselves 
that there is anything peculiar in the quality of the 
American boy which will enable him to dispense 



72 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

with that long and patient training in prescribed 
studies which does so much for the German 
student in the secondary stage of his education. 
Indeed, there is so much flexibility and versatility 
in the present character of the American boy, and 
so much lack of stable institutions which have to 
do with education, that it is not possible to pro- 
nounce with confidence upon the question what 
his typical national characteristics will prove to 
be. At present it may be said that if the average 
pupil in this country is bright, enterprising, and 
inquiring, and is ready with a commendable reli- 
ance upon his own resources to skip from branch 
to branch on the tree of learning, and to pluck at 
an incredible variety of the flowers of knowledge 
in a short space of time, we are not so sure that 
he possesses certain other equally desirable qual- 
ities. These are the staying qualities, — the pati- 
ence, endurance, and steady industry on which 
scholarship depends. 



EDUCATION, NEW AND OLD 



EDUCATION, NEW AND OLD 

There are few things more astonishing than the 
rapidity and apparent ease with which periods of 
conservative thinking and practice are sometimes 
followed by great and even radical changes. 
Opinions which have long been regarded as having 
the necessary quality of rational principles are at 
such times contested and discarded; practices 
that have come to be associated with sacred ideas 
of duty and of religion are deemed unreasonable 
and are abandoned. Indeed, in this generation 
and land of ours, such great and radical changes 
have become so frequent as almost to fail of excit- 
ing the astonishment they really merit. Moreover, 
there are few subjects — at least among those con- 
cerning which the world has commonly been 
supposed to have settled conclusions on the basis 
of a suflQcient experience — that are just now in a 
more precarious condition than that of education. 
For tens of centuries the so-called civilized world 
has discussed and practised touching the question 
how best to train the young. For a less number 
of centuries a considerable part of the civilized 
world has been much at its ease in the gratifying 



76 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

belief that it was answering the question wisely. 
But now the New Education, as brought to our 
notice afresh by Professor Palmer's article in the 
November number of this Review, claims to have 
made beyond doubt the discovery that the answer 
hitherto practically given must be almost com- 
pletely reversed. The language used by the article 
alluded to is not a bit too strong to express the 
completeness of the proposed reversal. The New 
Education has avowedly thrown away an " estab- 
lished principle ; " has organized a college " from 
the top almost to the bottom on a wholly different 
plan ; " has wrought " a revolution like that in the 
England of Victoria." 

It would be an error to suppose, however, that 
even so revolutionary a change in education should 
be denied fair consideration, on the ground that 
what seems to contradict a well-nigh universal 
experience cannot, of course, be wise and true. If 
the New Education should finally come to have 
matters according to its liking in all our educa- 
tional institutions, such a change of custom would 
not be wholly without a parallel in the history of 
the subject. It would perhaps not be greater than 
the change which took place in the culture of 
Greek youth when the Sophists captivated them 
all by adding rhetoric and dialectic to the ancient 
disciplines of music, mathematics, and gymnastics. 
Nor can it be wholly forgotten that the ancient 



EDUCATION, NEW AND OLD 77 

classics only a few centuries since turned out much 
of the theology and metaphysics from the univer- 
sities of Europe, in order to make a place for 
themselves as the new learning of the day. The 
truth is, that poetry, mathematics, and philosophy 
are about the only branches of human knowledge 
that have everywhere and in all times been re- 
garded as studies indispensable to what the civilized 
world has agreed to call culture. Yet these are 
perhaps the studies which are at present least 
prized of all by that class of youth who are fired 
with the ambition to choose wholly for themselves 
a training suited to the so-called '^ practical life " 
of business, politics, journalism, etc. 

Accordingly, we are not among those who, when 
startling new views are proposed in opposition to 
ancient convictions and customs, refuse to tolerate 
the possibility of such views being largely or 
mainly trustworthy. But, on the other hand, the 
advocates of the New Education can scarcely expect, 
in the exercise of fairness and good judgment, that 
a scheme which they admit to be no less than 
" revolutionary " should be hastily caught at for its 
novelty by thoughtful educators. Professor Palm- 
er's description of the Harvard method calls upon 
us all to discard many cherished convictions ; we 
may justly expect it to enforce its call with many 
and valid reasons. It asks for a large faith ; we 
may ask of it some assured pledge that the faith 



78 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

will not be misplaced. It seems to me, then, that 
little fault could be found with any educator of 
youth, whose mind worked in a moderately conserv- 
ative fashion, if he should decline to estimate 
highly the detailed facts which make up the very 
limited experience of the New Education. In 
other words, I do not think that the trial of the 
Harvard method is yet old enough to be critically 
weighed and pronounced upon. It is true that the 
elective system was adopted there, to a certain 
small extent, as long ago as 1825. But until 1879 
" some prescribed study remained " for juniors ; 
till 1884 for sophomores. During only a single year 
have freshmen in Harvard College chosen a major- 
ity of their own studies. But it is precisely to 
making all of the last two years of the college 
course elective, and to giving any considerable 
play to the elective system in the earlier years, 
that the opponents of the Harvard method have 
most decided objections. For it by no means 
follows that, because some choice of his own studies 
is good for the young man of twenty-one or twenty- 
two years, therefore the entire control of his 
studies should be committed to the boy from eigh- 
teen to twenty. As to whether it is wise that 
freshmen and sophomores should be placed com- 
pletely under the elective system, Harvard itself 
has, then, barely two years of experience ; and for 
the upper classes only a few years more. No 



EDUCATION, NEW AND OLD 79 

graduates of the New Education have yet gone out 
into the world. But it will surely take more than 
one whole generation to prove what the real and 
final outcome of so profound changes in education 
is to be. Is it ungenerous toward progress when 
we declare that the experience of a single educa- 
tional institution for scarcely a moiety of its four 
years' course — whatever that experience may have 
been — is a very inadequate proof of the desirable- 
ness of a " revolution " in education ? We cannot 
sample the orchard by chewing the blossoms of a 
single tree. 

Let it not be supposed, however, that there is 
reason to shrink from the detailed examination of 
the statistics with which Professor Palmer has 
argued the cause of the New Education. For one, 
I heartily thank him for them. They are so clearly 
and fairly presented, and so courteously urged, 
that nothing more in that direction can be for the 
present demanded. I am especially glad to have 
the affair of passing his article in critical review 
take so tangible a shape. It gives me a coveted 
opportunity to bring forward corresponding statis- 
tics which have not been formed under the influ- 
ence of the Harvard method. It thus becomes a 
task definitely set me by the editors of the " An- 
dover Eeview" to compare one college with an- 
other. I need not apologize, to remove any of that 
odium which almost inevitably attaches itself to 



80 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

such work of comparison. The question of fact is 
raised by the previous article commending the so- 
called New Education : How does it work ? What 
better way to answer the question thus raised than 
to compare the tabulated results (so far as such 
results can be tabulated) of the new method with 
those reached by a somewhat different method ? 
I select Yale to compare with Harvard, as a matter 
of course, for I am a teacher at Yale, and can most 
easily obtain trustworthy statistics concerning edu- 
cational affairs in my own college. Moreover, 
there is a certain fitness in comparing these two 
great institutions. Harvard is avowedly the only 
thorough representative of what Professor Palmer 
calls the New Education ; Yale is certainly the 
leading representative of those more conservative 
tendencies in education to which what is called 
" new " is understood to be opposed. I shall, 
therefore, follow his argument from experience, 
point by point, showing how the results of experi- 
ence here compare with those obtained at Harvard 
under its new method. 

Before bringing forward statistics, and thus put- 
ting myself into the attitude of an antagonist or 
carping critic toward Professor Palmer, I crave the 
opportunity of expressing my sympathy and agree- 
ment with him on several important points. It is 
true that the world of science and learning has 
changed and enlarged with wonderful rapidity of 



EDUCATION, NEW AND OLD 81 

late. It is, of course, also true that both the mat- 
ter and the method of education must change ac- 
cordingly. The literary communication of nations 
is now such that no man can be the most success- 
ful student of any subject who is not able to use at 
least two or three of those languages in which the 
results of modern researches are chiefly recorded. 
The ancient classics can never again hold the same 
relatively great or exclusive place in the study of 
language, or as mental discipline. The new 
science, psychological and political, no less than 
physical, will certainly have its rights regarded. 
The subject-matter of education must change. It 
is also true that methods of education must change. 
The modern teacher stands in a different relation 
to his pupils from that held by the teacher of by- 
gone days. He has a larger work than that of 
giving out tasks ; he must rely on something more 
in his hearers than their reverence for his ex-officio 
dignity and their readiness to accept his ipse dixit. 
He must also stand in relations towards his pupils 
that are different from those which formerly ob- 
tained with respect to their discipline in manners 
and morals. 

But it is simple matter of fact that all our most 
respectable educational institutions are recogniz- 
ing the facts and truths to which I have just al- 
luded, and are recognizing them in practical ways. 
Surely no most excessive admirer of Harvard and 

6 



82 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

its methods would think of denying that other col- 
leges also have made a large place for the new 
sciences, are using improved ways of instruction 
with fresh enthusiasm on the part of both teachers 
and pupils, and have their eyes and hearts open to 
all that is going on in the wide world of science 
and learning. No one acquainted with Yale at 
present, as compared with Yale fifty or even 
twenty-five years since, could for a moment doubt 
that much of its education is worthy of being called 

With the ethical spirit of Professor Palmer's ar- 
ticle I am also in the fullest accord ; he meets a 
hearty response from the Yale method when he 
proposes to measure the success of education by 
standards that are strong and high in an ethical 
way. I, too, understand the end of education to 
be not merely information in certain subjects — 
few or many — of scientific or historical research, 
but, also and chiefly, control of the faculties, and 
vigorous, reasonable, symmetrical use of them for 
the attainment of worthy ideals. And if he will 
show me that the so-called New Education really 
does '' uplift character as no other training can, and 
through influence on character ennoble all methods 
of teaching and discipline," I will not wait to be 
his ardent convert. It is precisely because of my 
fears that it will not accomplish this in the majority 
of cases that I am reluctant to accept the methods 



EDUCATION, NEW AND OLD 83 

it proposes. But Professor Palmer advances the 
statistical proofs that in very truth the method has 
already wrought to this desirable and noble end at 
Harvard. We are brought around, then, to his sta- 
tistics in our effort to come into the fullest possible 
sympathy of view with his opinions. Do the sta- 
tistics show, or even tend to show, the superiority 
of the method of education in force at Harvard, as 
compared with that still employed at Yale ? I am 
prepared to affirm that they do not. I am prepared 
to affirm that, in all the matters which can fairly 
be said to be direct desirable results of the methods 
of teaching employed by the two institutions, the 
figures speak rather against than for the New Edu- 
cation. The various items of proof will be arranged 
for consideration in the order which seems most 
convenient, but all the points made by Professor 
Palmer will be covered before leaving the subject. 

Among the various proofs of experience that the 
New Education is successful we find the enlarge- 
ment and improvement of the prevalent student 
idea of a " gentleman." Students are proverbially 
influenced by consideration for " good form." It 
is no longer " good form " at Harvard to haze fresh- 
men, smash windows, disturb lecture-rooms, etc. 
Such things as these are largely, if not wholly, at 
an end. Now the growth away from barbarous and 
rowdyish customs has characterized all the colleges 
of the land, — some of them to a greater, some to 



84 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

a less degree. A marked improvement in these 
regards has gone on at Yale, until the more offen- 
sive forms of such misbehavior are matters of 
tradition and of the past. It could be shown by 
all the testimony possible to obtain on such a point 
that both the major and the minor morals of the 
students have steadily improved for the last twenty- 
five or more years. The relations between the 
Faculty and the students, instead of the old feeling 
of antagonism or division of interest, are cordial 
and tending to more and more of friendliness and 
co-operative work. This is perfectly well under- 
stood by the students themselves ; it is remarked 
upon in their conversation and in the papers which 
they publish. But I should not for a moment sup- 
pose that the same kind of improvement had not 
taken place — at least to some considerable degree 
— in other institutions of learning ; nor should I 
venture to attribute it largely to any peculiar 
method of education, either as partly elective or as 
largely prescribed. Such improvement is chiefly 
the result of the steady change in our civilization 
which has been going on, of better manners every- 
where, of the gradual decay of barbarous and med- 
iaeval antagonisms, of the spread of kindliness and 
intelligence. It is also due, in special, to the fact 
that teachers and parents take a different attitude 
toward the young under their charge, and that the 
young themselves have a wider outlook on life. It 



EDUCATION, NEW AND OLD 85 

is also due to the fact that college Faculties have 
relaxed in many of their old severities and petty 
exactions, and have taken the young men — whether 
by some scheme devised or by the common consent 
of all hearts and wills — more into their confidence. 
It is also due to the influence of well-regulated 
athletic sports, which provide an outlet for the ex- 
penditure of that surplus vitality in which youth 
rejoices. The New Education has no monopoly in 
these improvements. Nor do I believe that it can 
show any advantage in these matters as compared 
with that blending of things new and old which is 
prevalent at Yale. 

It is also claimed that the New Education has the 
stamp of approval in the special amount of popular 
favor which it has secured. It is shown that the 
period during which the new method has been on trial 
has been one of " unexampled prosperity " for Har- 
vard, its representative. Kich men have signified 
their acceptance of it by generous gifts. Parents 
and sons have ratified the system, as may be seen by 
the increase of numbers which has taken place un- 
der its working. There can be no doubt that the last 
fifteen years exhibit a splendid record of growth at 
Harvard, both in numbers and in resources. But 
it will scarcely be claimed by Professor Palmer that 
all the generous gifts it has received have been de- 
signed to set the seal of approval from their donors 
upon its peculiar methods. Other sums of money, 



86 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

even larger, have been given to found and rear in- 
stitutions by rich men who had no ideas, either new 
or old, which they desired to perpetuate in a pecu- 
liar college system. Other colleges which have not 
adopted the Harvard system — except so far as 
some elective courses in a college curriculum may 
be said to be an adoption of the system — have 
also received bountiful gifts. During the last four- 
teen years the amount of gifts made to the univer- 
sity of Yale, either already delivered over or in the 
process of delivery by executors, exceeds 12,066,000 ; 
of this sum $928,400 stands upon the treasurer's 
books as cash paid in to the treasury since 1871 ; 
the remainder has gone into the " plant " of the 
university. During the same time the sum of more 
than 1460,000 additional has been secured by be- 
quest, to be paid into its treasury on the termina- 
tion of certain lives. Meanwhile, its library has 
increased by 83,000 volumes. This more than two 
and a half millions may not, indeed, equal the sum 
given to Harvard during the same period. But it 
bears comparison with that sum so well as to raise 
the inquiry whether the prestige of the New Educa- 
tion with the long purses of the country is beyond 
question. 

The increase of students is a more direct and 
appreciable argument. It certainly does go for 
something in showing how the popular favor is 
setting, at least for the immediate time. I can 



EDUCATION, NEW AND OLD 87 

readily see how joung men of eighteen, if left to 
themselves, would incline to give the authority of 
their presence to the methods of the New Educa- 
tion. Still, it is by no means certain that the 
large accessions to Harvard for the past twenty- 
five years signify all that they might seem to at 
first sight. During the same period other institu- 
tions, not adopting its method, have likewise had 
remarkable growth; on other grounds than its 
adoption Yale has constantly grown in numbers 
during this period. Its growth as estimated by 
the average number of undergraduates, exclusive 
of special students (which I suppose Professor 
Palmer also excluded from his estimate), has been 
as follows : 1861-65, 533 ; 1866-70, 610 ; 1871- 
75,704; 1876-80, 745; 1880-84, 792. It should 
also be said that probably no other college has 
rejected so large a per cent, of candidates for ad- 
mission, or sent away so many for failing to keep 
up to its standard of scholarship. 

Even the most recent statistics throw still more 
doubt upon the argument from the number of 
students. It is found, by counting the under- 
graduates in the last Harvard catalogue, that 591 
of the 1061, or more than 55 per cent., are from 
the State in which the college is situated. Only 
247, or less than 32 per cent., of the undergradu- 
ates of Yale are from Connecticut. Not only rela- 
tively but absolutely, more men come to the latter 



88 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

than to the former institution from outside of the 
State in which it is situated. If, then, Massa- 
chusetts may be said to sanction the New Educa- 
tion, as yet the country at large cannot be said to 
have done so. It is not yet cosmopolitan. 

But we shall better appreciate the statistical 
argument for and against the New Education if we 
compare figures concerning matters that may more 
fairly be held to indicate its direct results ; and 
among them, first, the amount of regular attention 
given by the students to the college exercises, to 
lectures and recitations. Professor Palmer thinks 
it creditable to the method he advocates that, by 
actual count, under a wholly voluntary and wholly 
elective system, the last senior class at Harvard 
" had cared to stay away " only two exercises per 
week out of twelve, — that is, rather more than 
sixteen per cent, of the whole. Now the point of 
fidelity and regularity is of such supreme impor- 
tance in the life of the student that I have taken 
especial pains to secure its statistics here ; the 
reader is requested thoughtfully to compare them 
with the statement of Professor Palmer. At Yale 
this term, for the seven weeks for which the record 
is complete, the average per cent, of absence in the 
class of '89 has been 3.T per cent. ; that is, the 
average freshman of the Academical Department 
has been present 15.4 out of a possible 16 of his 
weekly recitations. This record includes absences 



EDUCATION, NEW AND OLD 89 

from all causes whatever ; it includes 48 absences 
due to the illness of one man for three weeks, and 
several other cases of absence due to illness of the 
student or of his friends. The record of the 
sophomore class for the same period is even 
slightly better ; for the average sophomore has 
attended 14.5 exercises per week out of a possible 
15 required. The absences of this class have been 
only slightly more than three and a third per cent. 
It should further be mentioned that under the 
rules all tardiness at a recitation beyond five 
minutes and all egresses are counted as absences. 
Moreover, if the student chooses to be present 
without responsibility for being questioned, he has 
the privilege of doing so at the expense of one of 
his " allowed " absences. In the aggregate a con- 
siderable number avail themselves of this privilege. 
For an example of diligent attention to the busi- 
ness of learning, I think it would be hard to find 
anything superior to the following: On a recent 
week (in November) there were only eight absences 
in a division of 34 men, and three of these were so- 
called " cuts," when the student was present but 
not reciting. That is to say, the real absences 
were for that one division during the period of a 
week only a trifle over one per cent. It should be 
remembered, also, that no excuses are now given 
for sports, attentions to friends, minor ailments, 
etc. ; and yet the average Yale freshman or sopho- 



90 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

more does not avail himself of more than about 
three fourths of the six absences allowed him dur- 
ing a term to cover all such cases. Nor should it 
be inferred that the regularity of these seven weeks 
is special to any large extent, as being due to 
causes prevalent during the earlier part of the fall 
term of 1885. It is likely that the record for the 
entire term would make even a better showing ; the 
spendthrifts who incur most absences on the whole, 
as a rule, use up their " cuts " early in the term. 
The officer in charge of the records assures me 
that, on looking over them cursorily, he concludes 
that the worst terms for some years past would not 
show more than five per cent, of absences in these 
classes. The amount of absence in the two upper 
classes is somewhat greater. There is good reason 
for this. The junior and senior classes contain 
more men who are of age, who therefore go home 
to vote, have private business out of New Haven to 
which they must attend, etc. Under the rules of 
the college they are also given one third more of 
" allowed absences '' than the lower classes, — that 
is to say, eight in a term instead of six. But for 
all causes combined, exclusive of a few cases of sick- 
ness lasting more than a week, the irregularity of the 
junior class during the period under consideration 
was less than five and a half per cent. ; that of the 
senior class only a trifle more than six per cent. 
A comparison of the two systems as actually at 



EDUCATION", NEW AND OLD 91 

work in Harvard and in Yale shows, then, this 
remarkable fact : The irregularity of the average 
Harvard student is from a little less than three to 
about five times as great as that of the average 
Yale student. The former is off duty, either from 
choice or compulsion, rather more than sixteen per 
cent, of his time ; the latter from less than three 
and a third to a trifle more than six per cent. 
Such discrepancy is remarkable. In my opinion, 
it is highly significant as respects the working of 
the two systems. Let the reader inquire of him- 
self what its significance must be as regards 
preparation, both intellectual and ethical, for the 
work of life. Let any man in business or in pro- 
fessional life ask himself this question : What sort 
of work should I do, what success have, if T and 
my employees were absent sixteen per cent, of the 
entire time allotted for work ? More particularly 
with reference to the life of education, let each one 
interested in the problem propose such questions 
as follow : What service would the public school or 
academy render which permitted an average non- 
attendance of its pupils amounting to sixteen per 
cent, of the entire time ; or, in other words, re- 
duced the school-days of the week to about four 
in number ? Is there any adequate reason why a 
youth who is being trained to a life of faithful and 
patient work should, for a term of four years in 
the most critical period of his life, enjoy a freedom 



92 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

from restraints which belongs to the well-regulated 
discipline of neither man nor boy ? The average 
pupil under the New Education, if he has been 
properly fitted for college, has probably had no 
such liberty allowed him hitherto ; unless he leads 
after leaving college a life of self-indulgence in- 
stead of successful industry, he will never have 
such liberty again. Is there any magic of morals 
which makes it best that he should for this par- 
ticular quaternion be put " upon honor " in a man- 
ner different from that to which the rest of the 
working world is compelled ? But it is at best the 
average man at Harvard who is off duty sixteen 
per cent, of his time ; what, then, must be the 
amount of irregularity characterizing the more 
faithless half or quarter of each class ? 

I have no hesitation whatever in saying that it 
would be quite impossible for students to pass 
through Yale College who did not attend more 
regularly to their duties than the average senior 
under the New Education. Such students probably 
could not finish a single year. It must not be sup- 
posed, however, that attendance is exacted of the 
Yale student in such manner as to crush out all 
spontaneity of impulse, and make both recitation- 
room and teacher repulsive. Doubtless there is a 
considerable percentage of men in every college 
who find all mental work a hardship ; with a few, 
the more and the more regular the work, the greater 



EDUCATION, NEW AND OLD 93 

their sense of hardship. But with the body of 
students at Yale the case is not so. Their spirit 
will compare most favorably with that which Pro- 
fessor Palmer describes as characteristic of the 
New Education. That they are not merely driven 
by severe rules to their tasks is shown by the 
fact that, as I have already said, the average Yale 
student does not avail himself of all his allowed 
absences. It is also shown by the fact that a con- 
siderable percentage of men, especially in the upper 
classes, are ready to take over-hours of work ; this 
in spite of the fact that the required number of 
recitations at Yale is fifteen (or sixteen) per week^ 
instead of twelve as at Harvard. It is further 
shown by the large use which the students make 
of the libraries. On this point, then, let us com- 
pare facts with the New Education. Professor 
Palmer considers it a triumph for "the system" 
that the extent to which the college library is con- 
sulted by the undergraduates has increased from 
fifty-six per cent, in 1860-61 to eighty-five per 
cent, in 1883-84. But for years past the average 
Yale student, so far as the statistics of the respec- 
tive libraries show, has been more a reader of 
books than his Harvard fellow under the present 
high estate reached by the New Education. Dur- 
ing the year selected for comparison (1883-84) 
the undergraduates of Yale drew from " Linonian 
and Brothers" alone 18,440 volumes; all but 76 



94 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

— or eighty-eight per cent. — of the academical 
students, and all but 38 — or eighty-two per cent, 
of the scientific students used this collection of 
books. More than eighty-six per cent., that is, of 
all the undergraduates drew out to the average 
amount of 26 volumes each. As to the quality of 
the books drawn, no record is easily obtainable for 
this particular year ; but the record for a previous 
year shows that more than two thirds were not 
books of fiction. Statistics just published for the 
last year show that the academical sophomores 
alone drew 4,139 volumes from this library ; but 
the sophomores at Yale are denied all benefit from 
the New Education. The use of Linonian and 
Brothers' Library by the undergraduates, however, 
has been relatively decreasing, on account of the 
large increase in the use of other collections of 
books more recently placed at their convenient 
disposal. Noteworthy among such collections are 
the loan libraries belonging to some of the de- 
partments of instruction, — especially of political 
science, history, etc. Add to all these items the 
increasing use, by consultation on the spot and 
otherwise (of which statistics are not easily attain- 
able), of the main college library, and we have an 
amount of voluntary literary activity among the 
Yale undergraduates which certainly need not 
shrink from comparison with the best results of 
the Harvard system. 



EDUCATION^, NEW AND OLD 95 

Professor Palmer says truly that " the charge of 
* soft ' courses is the stock objection to the elective 
system." He is, therefore, at considerable pains 
to show how wisely the juniors and seniors on the 
whole make their choices, and with no predominat- 
ing disposition to shirk hard work. I regret that 
we are not told more particularly just how the 
lower classes exercise their option. For it is as 
to the lower classes that our main contention 
exists. In order to make his case good, it must 
be shown that boys of eighteen and nineteen, on 
entering college without a knowledge of what their 
pursuits in life will be or of what in reality most 
of the studies before them mean, are competent 
to compose the entire subject-matter of their own 
instruction. On my part, I am prepared to affirm 
that for wise choice of elective courses far more 
maturity of judgment and knowledge of various 
subjects than belong to the American youth at 
such a time in his life are highly desirable, if not 
imperatively necessary. So far as I can judge, the 
choices of the Yale juniors and seniors show more 
taste for hard work than is developed under the 
new system. It is noticeable that no course in 
the classics or higher mathematics is set down 
as being a favorite with the two upper classes at 
Harvard in 1883-84. But 54 juniors and 181 
seniors are reported as having taken courses in 
*' Fine Arts " for the present year. At Yale this 



96 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

term, however, 53 choices of courses in higher 
mathematics (calculus, vector analysis, etc.) have 
been made by juniors and seniors, and 179 choices 
in the ancient classics, 99 in Latin, and 80 in 
Greek, by the same classes. (I give the number 
of choices rather than of men, as indicating better 
the amount of interest taken in a given subject.) 
It should be remembered, also, that each of these 
choices involves responsibility for the performance 
of a daily task, as distinguished from cramming 
for an examination. I am unable to say that the 
Harvard system has no statistics to match these. 
But I have a pretty firm conviction that students 
who have been kept regularly at hard work in pre- 
scribed courses for the first two years of a college 
course will be far more likely to enjoy hard work 
in the later years of that course. 

The last remark would, of course, hold true only 
in case the standard of scholarship were kept well 
up, and the instruction made bracing and attrac- 
tive. I am therefore led to examine briefly two 
other excellences which Professor Palmer ascribes 
to the New Education. It is, he thinks, steadily 
raising the rank which is reckoned " decent schol- 
arship." This is apparently proved by a compara- 
tive statement of the " marks " received by the 
average Harvard student in the different classes 
for the different years since 1874-75. I will say 
frankly, but without intending to cast the least 



EDUCATION, NEW AND OLD 97 

shadow of question over the sincerity with which 
the proof is offered, that I find myself unable to 
confide in it. I should not think of trying to 
compare the statistics of the marks given under 
any two systems; or even — for that matter — 
under different decades of the same system. The 
marks of the average student are, of course, higher 
under the elective system. One reason is to be 
found in the fact that so many students choose 
their electives with reference to the marks they 
expect to attain under the chosen instructor. The 
teacher, as well as the pupil, is known by his 
marks. And it is more of a test of a pupil's real 
merits, under the elective s7/stem, to inquire how 
many courses he takes under teachers that give 
hard work and low marks than how high a mark 
he is able to attain by judiciously choosing his 
courses. Under a system of study largely pre- 
scribed, the various eccentricities of the instructors 
in marking nearly cancel each other. But under 
a system wholly elective the comparative statistics 
of the marks are quite worthless to indicate the 
grade of real scholarship secured. 

I feel some hesitation about extending my 
comparisons so as to cover one of the points 
which Professor Palmer has made. He testifies 
to the improvement which the New Education has 
wrought in the spirit and work of the instructors 
themselves. His testimony is, of course, to be 

7 



98 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

accepted as conclusive upon this point. I should 
be very loath to admit, however, that the kind of 
spirit and method which he justly considers ad- 
mirable in the teacher are inseparably connected 
with the system in vogue at Harvard. It seems 
to me that a teacher who suffers himself to grow 
dull and slack because his pupils must come to 
him whether or no is scarcely fit to be a teacher 
under any so-called system. Certainly there have 
been not a few inspiring instructors in our Ameri- 
can colleges before the New Education was dis- 
covered. Is it at all likely that there will be only 
a few poor ones in case the triumph of the New 
Education is everywhere secured ? Is it not even 
possible that certain methods of instruction may 
in time be developed by a system that makes so 
much depend upon the favor of those instructed 
which will not conduce to the highest efficiency in 
education ? 

A word of personal experience will be in place 
at this point. I cannot follow Professor Palmer, 
who looks back upon his college days and feels 
that more than half his studies should have been 
different. The studies in my college curriculum 
were wholly prescribed ; they included the ancient 
classics in junior year, and calculus, both integral 
and differential. Like him, I was especially fond 
of Greek and philosophy ; but I studied calculus 
with more carefulness on that very account. I 



EDUCATION, NEW AND OLD 99 

learned to do patiently the things set me to do ; 
to work hard and wait for the reward ; to conquer 
every task — whatever it might be — before leav- 
ing it. And I would not give this bit of learning 
for all to be got from the most attractive elective 
courses of both Harvard and Yale. 

But it is full time to recall thought to the real 
matter of disagreement between Professor Palmer 
and myself. Toward the close of his article we 
find the remark that, for lack of room, he cannot 
explain at length " why the elective system should 
be begun as early as the freshman year ; " it is 
added, " surely not much room is needed." But, 
as I understand the matter, this is precisely what 
requires most room, both for explanation and for 
argument. In common with most colleges, Yale 
now permits considerable choice in the last two 
years of its curriculum ; the elective courses now 
constitute eight fifteenths of the junior year, and 
four fifths of the senior. No choice, with the 
exception of one, between French and German, is 
permitted in the first two years. Now, of course, 
the question is entirely reasonable to ask of one 
who, like myself, approves heartily of so much of 
the elective system. Why not accept it throughout 
in the form adopted by Harvard ? Why draw the 
line between sophomore and junior years rather 
than between freshman year in college and the 
last year in the fitting-school? Why prescribe 



100 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

any courses for the last two years in preference to 
giving the student full range for the exercise of 
his preferences? The reply to these questions 
might be given with an indefinite amount of detail. 
This whole question, like nearly all those questions 
which most perplex our human life, is one of 
drawing lines and making distinctions. Probably 
all will admit that lines must be drawn some- 
where. There comes a time, that is to say, when 
the boy may be left more and more to direct 
himself, — as in other matters, so in the subject- 
matter of his education. But for years the boy, 
in order to learn how to study and how to make 
right choice of what he will study, must be kept in 
prescribed lines. Infants cannot decide whether 
they will learn to read or not. Small boys cannot 
be left wholly to decide whether they will study 
grammar and arithmetic. Older boys and youths 
and young men, whatever they undertake in the 
education of themselves, find a great fund of 
previous experience and established custom hem- 
ming them in and restricting their perfectly free 
choice. The average college freshman ought not 
to desire, and he is not capable of exercising, such 
choice in so grave a problem as that of determin- 
ing all the further subject-matter of his education. 
In the matter of assuming full political rights 
and privileges the State requires the youth to have 
reached the age of twenty-one. I do not suppose 



EDUCATION, NEW AND OLD 101 

that there is anything magical about this particu- 
lar number. Some young men would be ready for 
suffrage earlier ; some men are never really ready 
for it. But a line must be drawn somewhere. 
And certainly, after the youth has spent two years 
in the drill of college life, he is much better fitted 
than when he enters for exercising his choices in 
respect to the rest of his education ; but then only 
in a limited way. Professor Palmer, however, 
thinks it almost self-evident that when the boy 
leaves home, at about eighteen years of age, is the 
best time for him to begin to say what he will 
study ; and that, all at once, and from that time 
onward, he should have the entire say. It seems 
to me that the very fact of the new surroundings 
with which college life begins is an argument the 
other way. After the youth has developed awhile 
in his new surroundings, has adjusted himself to 
them, has learned from experience in them how 
matters pertaining to study go, and what the dif- 
ferent courses opening before him are, then, and 
not till then, should he be summoned to the grave 
task of deciding. It is better, too, that he should 
be introduced gradually to the responsibilities of 
deciding. A headlong plunge into freedom is not 
a real good. Moreover, I am one of those who still 
believe that an educated man should be trained to 
some good degree in each of the four great branches 
of human knowledge, — in language, including lit- 



102 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

erature ; in mathematics and physical science ; in 
the history of his race; in the knowledge of the 
human mind in its relations to all else. It is, 
then, precisely because I do not believe that the 
New Education draws its lines in the right place 
that I am opposed to what I regard as its extreme 
measures and not well-guarded ideas. In an en- 
larged use of option for the later years of college 
life I do believe ; but my belief in the elective 
system at all in the American college is not so 
strong as my distrust of the lengths to which it 
is being carried by the so-called New Education. 

There is one argument of Professor Palmer 
which is so much a matter of taste and impression, 
and so little a matter of statistics and logic, that 
it is not open to discussion. I refer to his convic- 
tion that a better type of manliness is developed 
at Harvard in the students than is to be found in 
other colleges that have less completely adopted 
the principles of the New Education. In behalf 
of my own pupils, and on the ground of careful 
observations, I will simply say, — I do not believe 
that any manlier men than those at Yale are to be 
found in any college in the country. 

Upon the subject of cultured manliness in the 
undergraduate student, I find myself holding the 
same ideal as that presented by Professor Palmer, 
but differing from him considerably in my judg- 
ment as to the best way of realizing it. It seems 



EDUCATION, NEW AND OLD 103 

to me that he has left the great ethical law of 
habit, and the immense value of the pressure of 
immediate necessity, too much out of the account. 
We want, indeed, to train the young to make right 
choices, spontaneously, and with a generous love of 
duty. But none of us live under the sole influence 
of high ideals set at some remote distance from us. 
Day by day we choose to do our tasks because the 
hour for them has come, and the immediate pres- 
sure of the environment is upon us. Shall the 
physician go to his office when the hour comes ? 
His patients are there in waiting. He is expected 
daily at the appointed hours, — and not merely 
eighty-four per cent, of these hours. Shall the clerk 
be at the store, or the book-keeper at his desk, when 
the hour for beginning business has arrived ? He 
must be there : not because he will suffer physical 
torture if absent ; nor yet because he will finally 
discover that much absence for many years has 
not, on the whole, been for his best interests. He 
must be there because he is living under a system 
which makes it for his immediate interest to be 
there ; and, indeed, has been so trained under such 
a system that he scarcely contemplates the possi- 
bility of not being there. Under a system of edu- 
cation which kindly but firmly invites men to 
choose right, in view of consequences that fit 
close to their daily and hourly lives, the best char- 
acter will be trained. It is most like the divine 



104 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

system under which we live as bound together by 
associated action. 

The ground of Professor Palmer's argument 
from experience has now been pretty well trav- 
ersed. I am quite content to leave the facts and 
impressions on both sides to be weighed by all who 
may be interested in such discussion. In closing I 
shall express — in the name of the great majority 
of those engaged in the practical work of education 
in this country — some of the fears felt as to the 
ultimate results of the New Education. These 
fears are not bugbears, incontinently and obsti- 
nately opposed to the fair spirit of progress ; they 
are honest and strong fears. 

We are afraid that the New Education (mean- 
ing by this the method in use at Harvard) will 
increase the tendency to self-indulgence and 
shallowness, which is already great enough in 
American student life. A smattering of many 
knowledges, hastily and superficially got, is the 
temptation of our modern education. The chief 
remedy must be in a selection of certain topics to 
be pursued with large persistence and thorough- 
ness by all those who choose to associate them- 
selves for purposes of common study. If the 
average American boy, on entering college, had 
had a discipline, and had made acquisitions in a 
few lines of study, at all equalling the results 
reached by the German gymnasium, he might 



EDUCATION, NEW AND OLD 105 

more safely be left to choose for himself. One's 
eyes must be already well opened to hop about, 
fetter free, from twig to twig, upon the tree of 
knowledge. But our freshman has had no such 
mental discipline ; he has made no such acqui- 
sitions. The graduate of a German gymnasium 
knows, indeed, more of some subjects than the 
majority of the professors of the same subjects in 
not a few of our so-called colleges. Two years 
more of continued study in prescribed lines is 
certainly little enough. [It will be noticed that 
this statement is quite independent of any opinion 
as to vjJiat should be taught in fitting-school and 
early college years ; it implies only that something 
should be secured as thoroughly taught.] 

We are afraid of the effect of the New Education 
upon the academies and fitting-schools of the coun- 
try. Slowly but steadily the quality of the work 
done in the preparation of boys for college has been 
improving. The colleges have continually made 
increased demands upon the preparatory schools ; 
these schools have been continually responding 
better and better to the demands made upon them. 
But now they are to be called upon for a bewilder- 
ing variety of " courses." How shall they meet 
the demands made upon them by the many ways 
amongst which a boy may make his choice to enter 
the college doors as thrown open by the New Edu- 
cation ? What interest will boys continue to take 



106 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

in the mathematics and ancient classics of the fit- 
ting-school when these pursuits are required simply 
to get into college through one of these many doors, 
and are then liable to be abandoned as soon as the 
goal of free election has been attained ? 

We are afraid of the effect of the unrestricted 
elective system upon the higher education of the 
country. The standard of such education has con- 
stantly been rising for many years. The old 
methods were, indeed, faulty in many particulars, 
— in some inherently so, in more as a matter of 
accidental and temporary application. Yet, after 
all, they gave something that had a definite and 
tangible value. The new methods, in themselves 
considered, are better. The new learning and 
science are, of course, infinitely richer and broader 
than the old. In order to introduce them to the 
college undergraduate, however, is it necessary to 
take everything as respects the subject-matter of 
his education out of the direct control of the older 
and wiser party in the transaction, and commit it to 
the choice of the younger and more inexperienced ? 
If this is to be, how will it not affect, almost dis- 
astrously for a time, the interests of the higher 
education ? There are, to be sure, many ways of 
being educated : there are already many schools 
giving different quantities and kinds of knowledges 
and powers of action. Hitherto all ways and 
schools have invited the choices of the men who 



EDUCATION, NEW AND OLD 107 

have attended them only in a general way. They 
have said, virtually, If you choose me, you choose 
a certain kind and amount of discipline in know- 
ing and doing, and you must abide by your choice. 
We know how, as respects both matter and manner, 
to reach the end better than do you ; we will, in 
the main, choose the path for you. But what of 
connected, steady discipline in certain lines will a 
higher education come to represent in this country 
if the so-called " new " method of giving into the 
hands of the pupil all choice of subject, from one 
short period of education to the next, is to prevail ? 
Finally, we are afraid of the effect of the New 
Education upon the character of youth. We are 
still afraid of the very issues in which Professor 
Palmer finds his arguments for the benefits of the 
system he approves. It is not enough to show that 
some improvement in various particulars has taken 
place in student character and student life at Har- 
vard since this system was most completely put in 
place there. I think I have shown that in every 
respect, except the one of securing $175,000 instead 
of 1250,000 a year, and of making a smaller per- 
centage of annual gain in numbers, the results of 
the system still in vogue at Yale are equal, or 
superior, to those at Harvard. The argument, 
from an experience of one or two years in a single 
institution, does not quiet the fears which are 
grounded in old-time convictions and common in- 



108 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

stitutional customs that have their roots in many 
centuries. We need much more light, both from 
reason and from observation, before we can see our 
way clearly to prefer the so-called " New Educa- 
tion " to one which is, in our judgment, wiser, al- 
though both new and old. 



THE ESSENTIALS OF A MODERN 
LIBERAL EDUCATION 



THE ESSENTIALS OF A MODERN LIBERAL 
EDUCATION 

I BEG permission to preface the main body of 
this address with two remarks, partly apologetic 
and partly explanatory. The subject brought be- 
fore you this evening may seem to some quite lack- 
ing in that freshness of interest which promotes 
a flow of novel and entertaining thoughts. Only 
last February 20, in this city, an elaborate report 
from a number of experts was presented which 
dealt primarily with studies in elementary educa- 
tion. This report, however, suggested important 
modifications in that subsequent training of the 
smaller number which is traditionally esteemed 
worthy of being called a liberal education. And 
for some years past, not only in this country, but 
in France, in Germany, and even in conservative 
England, discussion has been rife over the order 
and the character of studies proper for collegiate 
and university students. In spite of writings and 
speeches innumerable, on the part of men and 
women most competent or very incompetent, it 
can scarcely be claimed by the non-partisan ob- 
server of this contention that agreement has been 



112 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

reached even upon the more important and funda- 
mental of the numerous considerations involved. 
Yet how important it seems to us all to have some 
settlement of the contention! For the children 
of to-day will not meantime stop growing into 
young manhood and young womanhood ; and the 
youth of to-day are constantly being converted 
into teachers of the generation following them. 

The other remark which you will please consider 
as a part of my preface is the following : Educa- 
tion is one of those subjects which, from their 
very nature, do not admit of a very close approach 
to demonstrative argument. Neither from history, 
nor from our knowledge of nature and of the 
human soul, nor from study of the details of ex- 
perience in the past, can we construct a science — 
strictly speaking — of education. Pedagogics will 
probably never hold a place among the exact 
sciences. We may, however, form comprehensive 
and defensible opinions on this subject ; and these 
opinions will be the more entitled to respect and 
acceptance, as the mind holding them is itself 
genial and truly liberal, and is also acquainted 
with the truths of history, of nature, and especially 
of the human soul. I close this remark, then, by 
saying that, without pretence of drawing irresisti- 
ble conclusions, much less of infallibility in argu- 
ment, I merely offer for your friendly consideration 
some of my opinions. 



A MODERN LIBERAL EDUCATION 113 

But first of all let us see clearly just what the 
question before us really is. For I cannot help 
thinking that, while the spirit in which it is de- 
bated and the inducements brought forward are 
often much too narrow, the question itself is rarely 
defined with sufficient limitation. As to the very 
meaning of the question, then, I offer these three 
statements : — 

It is a liberal education the nature of which we 
are briefly to discuss. Now this term necessarily 
implies some sort of differentiation. Freeing it, as 
far as possible, from all false pride and also from 
jealousy and unreasoning opprobrium, the term 
must be held to signify something more than mere 
education. It must signify— let us frankly con- 
fess -— education for the few as distinguished from 
education for the great multitude, or for the very 
many. The public schools, then, however supple- 
mented by private generosity, cannot reasonably 
be expected to provide the body of the people with 
a liberal education. I wish this declaration, how- 
ever, to be considered as different from the im- 
portant and closely connected practical question : 
"What part should the public schools take in 
starting a few selected pupils on their way to a 
truly liberal education?" 

Neither is a liberal education properly a technical 
education, such as our manual-training and trades 
schools, our business colleges, and even most of 

8 



114 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

our so-called scientific schools, aim to give. This 
may be admitted without in the least depreciating 
the character of the training given by these schools, 
or the value of the results which many of them pro- 
duce. But if we mean anything distinctive by the 
words, " a liberal education," it is something more 
than such an education as these schools furnish. 

We may now come closer to the meaning of the 
phrase by laying emphasis upon the word " liberal." 
Of course this word once meant, in this connec- 
tion, such an education as befits a free man or a 
gentleman. On this account there is still clinging 
to our usage something of pride on the one hand, 
and of jealousy and odium on the other hand. 
For are not all men now equally free ; and where 
is now the class of gentlemen, unique and distinc- 
tively so-called ? By a justifiable turn of mean- 
ing, however, a " liberal education " may be defined 
as that which makes the free mind, which furnishes 
the liberalizing culture of the trained gentleman. 
And here it must be remembered that all special- 
ists' studies have their peculiar prejudices and 
peculiar temptations — almost irresistible — to par- 
ticular forms of narrowness. A truly liberal edu- 
cation ought therefore to tend toward the setting 
of the mind free from all classes of scholastic 
prejudices. It ought to work in the direction of 
freedom from the philologue's narrowness, from 
the " scientist's " narrowness, from the circle of 



A MODERN LIBERAL EDUCATION 115 

such illiberality as distinguishes the mere student 
of economics, or of social problems, of psychology, 
or of theology. 

But, again, I am to speak of the " essentials " 
of that education which is worthy to be called 
liberal. Now, amid wide disagreements as to what 
and how much the constitution of a liberal educa- 
tion involves, and as to the order and proportion 
in which its studies should be taken, there prevails 
the universal assumption that some things are 
entitled to be considered indispensable factors in 
this constitution. Important changes have un- 
doubtedly taken place in opinion on almost all the 
subordinate points under discussion. The old- 
fashioned, substantial agreement as to what are 
essential subjects of instruction in this particular 
form or degree of education has been of late largely 
broken up. There is even more diversity of view 
as to how far subjects admitted to be essential 
should be carried before specialization in non- 
essentials is permitted or encouraged. Scarcely 
any two curricula in any of the institutions in this 
country which design and claim to afford a truly 
liberal education, precisely agree. Yet, theoret- 
ically, all are agreed as to the validity of a distinc- 
tion between essentials and non-essentials. And, 
practically, certain subjects are everywhere required, 
at least to some extent, in the earlier stages of this 
form of education. 



116 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

Once more, let it be borne in mind that the very 
inquiry as to what a " modern " liberal education 
should be admits the propriety, and even the 
necessity, of making changes in many of the 
factors of such an education. And here I must 
insist upon a distinction which has been of late 
almost wholly overlooked in all discussions of this 
subject. This is the distinction between a truly 
modern education and the recent great extension 
of the elective system in the education offered 
by the higher institutions of this country. That 
kind of freedom, or " liberality " if you please, 
which gives to the youth under education the 
choice of his subjects of pursuit, and largely of 
the order and manner of their pursuit, has been 
carried among us to an extent which astonishes 
the European students of educational problems. 
But neither the exercise nor the withdrawal of 
this freedom in itself determines the question 
whether the student is receiving a genuinely 
modern education. What is necessarily implied 
in this word " modern " I shall try to make clear in 
another connection. I now wish only to say that 
the term signifies some kind of change which 
shall adapt the so-called liberal education to the 
age, but that the particular kind of change re- 
quired is by no means necessarily to be reached 
through an elective system. 

And now as I inquire, " What, then, are the 



A MODERN LIBERAL EDUCATION 117 

essentials of a modern liberal education? What 
studies must be pursued in order to secure, as far 
as possible, the truly free and cultured mind in 
accordance with the actual conditions of modern 
life ? " I find no insuperable difficulty in making 
up a fairly defensible opinion. For amid many 
and conflicting changes, all is by no means 
changed. History still lies back of us with its 
great lessons there, although we must undoubtedly 
take pains in reading them into clear and con- 
vincing formulas. The primary and essential 
facts and laws of man's environment — what we 
call nature, in which human nature has its setting, 
and in which human life develops with a certain 
reciprocity of influences — also remain the same 
as ever. And the soul of man, that which is to 
be educated, — the real being whose culture to the 
point of highest freedom and perfection it is hoped 
by all changes in processes the better to attain, — 
the soul of man is not essentially different in this 
boastful nineteenth century from the soul of man 
in the so-called " Dark Ages," or when Plato and 
Aristotle undertook its informing, purifying, and 
elevating. 

From history, from nature without, and from 
the nature of the mind, I think we may confidently 
derive a body of rational conclusions as to what 
are the essentials of the most modern liberal edu- 
cation, or of all truly liberal education. And now, 



118 THE HIGHER EDUCATION" 

without making any show of argument, deductive 
or inductive, as though you could not avoid being 
convinced and agreeing with me, I will frankly 
state my own opinions and some of the reasons 
which, in my own reflections, support them. 

A truly liberal education includes, I think, 
as essential to it, the prolonged and scholastic 
pursuit of three subjects, or groups of subjects. 
These three are, language and literature, mathe- 
matics and natural science, and the soul of man, 
including the products of his reflective thinking. 
Any education which is markedly defective on 
any one of these three sides comes, so far, short 
of being liberal, — of being, that is to say, the kind 
of culture which sets the mind most truly free, 
and which is worthy of the cultivated gentleman 
in the nobler meaning of that latter word. 

It is difficult indeed to separate the scientific 
study of literature from the study of history, or 
to separate the proper pursuit of philosophy from 
the study of both literature and history. But in 
a qualified, though meaningful, way we may de- 
clare that the supreme expression of human 
mental life is in literature, — of man's life, that is, 
of thought and feeling. To get the supreme ex- 
pression of man in action, in the exercise of those 
activities which we somewhat loosely call practi- 
cal, we must turn to the study of history. But 
literature is, of course, a certain form of human 



A MODERN LIBERAL EDUCATION 119 

language, put on record so that the thoughts and 
feelings thus expressed can remain for other 
generations of thinking, feeling men to contem- 
plate sympathetically and yet critically. 

Language, then, is the only pass-key to litera- 
ture ; and to be a cultured student of language is 
the only possible way to possess the key which 
unlocks the treasure-house of literature. You will 
notice that I have used this important word in the 
singular number. I have not said that a liberal 
education includes of necessity the prolonged 
scholastic study of many languages, much less the 
glib-tongued use of many languages. It is un- 
doubtedly a very convenient thing in these days 
to speak in several of the principal forms of human 
speech ; it is even, if you please, a pretty accom- 
plishment quite worth spending some years of 
time and some thousands of dollars upon. But 
it is not an essential, it is not even a very vital 
and impressive, part of a truly liberal education. 
The empty-headed hotel clerk, the boorish globe- 
trotter, the frivolous boarding-school miss, may have 
this accomplishment of languages, and not have the 
first rudiments of a liberal culture in language. 

When, then, I speak of the prolonged and 
scholastic study of language as an essential of a 
liberal education, I have reference to acquiring the 
science and art of interpretation and the cognate 
science and art of expression. For the apprecia- 



120 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

tion of literature can never come by mere un- 
trained reading: I do not care to what kind of 
literature, or in what language expressed, you 
apply my denial. He who has made no such 
study of language as a liberal education implies 
cannot enter the inner temple of literature, he 
can scarcely cross the threshold of its outer courts ; 
for the key to the temple is the knowing how to 
get at the meaning of any literature ; and the 
knowing how to get at the meaning can only be 
acquired by the study — not of many languages 
as many, necessarily, but of at least some one 
language as the supreme expression of human 
thought and feeling. 

In order to illustrate and enforce my opinion I 
turn somewhat aside for a moment to the current 
discussions over the place of the ancient classical 
languages — especially of the Greek — in a modern 
liberal education. The larger part of the argu- 
ments used against continuing these languages in 
the place they have formerly held seem to me 
beyond all doubt justifiable. The answers which 
the defenders of these languages have most em- 
ployed are scarcely sufficient to ward off or to 
foil the attacks of their opponents. At the same 
time I most firmly believe in keeping the ancient 
classics substantially where they have been in the 
scheme of a truly liberal education ; and I do not 
believe in the proposed substitution of any of the 



A MODERN LIBERAL EDUCATION 121 

modern languages for the ancient classics. These 
seemingly conflicting sympathies I harmonize by 
answering the inquiry, why Latin and Greek should 
be required, in a way far more satisfactory to me 
than that followed by the classicists themselves. 
The ancient classical languages, and especially 
Greek, are, on account of their very construction 
and on account of the superiority of their equip- 
ment, by far the best media for the study of 
language, for the acquiring of the science and art 
of interpretation, for the possession and use of the 
key to literature. 

It seems to me that very insufficient account is 
customarily made of the difference between the 
man who has enjoyed and improved this part of 
a liberal education and the equally intelligent and 
serious man who is lacking here. The latter can 
never, try as hard as he may, read a choice piece 
of literature, of any sort or in any language, as 
the other readily can. The value of studying 
Greek, under skilful and judicious teaching, is 
not set at its highest even when we consider how 
choice are the stores of Greek literature which are 
thus opened to the student, if only he can master 
— a thing possible to only a few professors of 
Greek in this country — the language so as to 
move about at all freely in its literature. That 
value is rather seen at its highest when we con- 
sider how in this way a man may be best trained 



122 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

in skill and interest really to get at a good piece 
of literature in any language — even in his own 
language. 

An acquaintance of mine had some years ago a 
confidential conversation with the public servant to 
whom had been committed, for a long period of 
years, the engrossing of the bills proposed by the 
successive ministries of one of the most powerful 
and intelligent nations on the face of the earth. 
This work this official had done for two prime 
ministers, one of whom was a classical scholar, the 
other a man of literary training and tastes, but 
without a liberal education in language study. 
The clear-cut, intelligible, interpretable character 
of the bills drafted by the former were, as a rule, 
in marked contrast with the confused, uninterpret- 
able, but " flourishing" style of the latter. 

Asa rule, the Japanese cultivated classes acquire 
the speaking and writing of foreign languages with 
an uncommon speed and deftness. But I never 
knew a scholar of that nation — no matter, we 
will suppose, how well acquainted both with Japa- 
nese and with English — who could furnish you 
an exact interpretation of either one of these lan- 
guages in terms of the other. This inability is 
doubtless partly due to the immense difference in 
the so-called genius of the two languages. But it 
is also, I venture to believe, largely due to the fact 
that exact interpretation — the telling precisely 



A MODERN LIBERAL EDUCATION 123 

what do yon understand this to mean as a matter 
of careful construing — is not made a study among 
the Japanese in acquiring a liberal education. 

For myself, I do not hesitate to say that if I had 
forgotten all I ever knew of the Greek language 
and of the Greek literature, its study would still 
be worth double the time it cost in making me able 
to sit down with a good book, in whatever language 
written, and let its author tell me just what was in 
his mind and on his heart. I insist upon it that the 
practical consequences of retiring the study of the 
classical languages from the curriculum of a liberal 
education will be something quite incalculable in 
the way of wresting from those who call themselves 
cultured the key to every form of good literature. 

It would scarcely seem necessary to argue that 
a somewhat wide acquaintance with, and fondness 
for, good literature is a necessary part of a truly 
liberal education. For theoretically few indeed 
are found ready to dispute this truth. But, in my 
opinion, this is one of the truths most likely at the 
present time to be left practically out of the ac- 
count in making up our estimate of the studies 
indispensable to such an education. There is read- 
ing enough done — there is far too much reading 
(^one — by the multitude of the people and by the 
so-called educated classes. And of the making of 
many books, the gross, materialistic, sordid manu- 
facture of something to be read, — something, no 



124 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

matter what, if you can only so construct and ad- 
vertise it that it will be read, — there is no promise 
of an end. But the simple undisputed matter of 
fact is that what is read is not literature, and 
would, almost all of it, better be left unread. 

It is somewhat shocking to discover how few 
men and women, even among those who claim the 
title of "• educated," know or care much about really 
good literature. They read — the newspapers 
(Heaven pity them), the magazines, and the lat- 
est, most sensational novels. But with these per- 
sons there is little acquaintance or affection having 
for its object what is really pure, noble, and elevat- 
ing in the world's best books. I regard it, then, 
as of the utmost importance to hold up a high 
standard of literary culture as an aspiration and 
aim of all those who would lay claim to a truly 
liberal education. 

And here I will venture to speak quite frankly 
though with perfect friendliness, concerning cer- 
tain efforts of some of the modern devotees of a 
more purely scientific education. They are often 
obviously irritated at the distinction which has not 
as yet been wholly abolished between the degree 
of B. A. and the other degrees given at the end of 
courses which do not emphasize in the same way 
the linguistic and literary side of culture. They 
think it unjust and intolerable that graduates of 
scientific schools, who have been serious and sue- 



A MODERN LIBERAL EDUCATION 125 

cessful in their studies, should not be eligible — 
for example — to the distinction of Phi Beta 
Kappa, or to other similar distinctions. Now, 
speaking for myself, I certainly have no exagger- 
ated estimate of the worth of titles or of member- 
ship in any form of learned societies. But I do 
care a great deal about the truth, and about main- 
taining in this country a high standard, a sound 
basis, and a comprehensive range, for the recipients 
of a liberal education. And in my opinion, any- 
one who claims that a larger amount of scholastic 
study of the physical and natural sciences can be 
substituted for studies in language and literature, 
so as to obtain in this way that kind of cultured 
mind which belongs to the intellectual freeman, is 
simply maintaining what, from the very nature of 
the case, cannot be made true. Neither bestowing 
nor withholding titles and membership in learned 
societies will alter the fundamental facts of the 
soul's life and development. Connected with these 
trifles, however, impressions and tendencies may be 
strengthened which will work a mischief to the 
cause of liberal education in this country from 
which it will not readily recover, even if a long 
time be allowed for the recovery. 

I hasten at once, however, to say that prolonged 
scholastic training in mathematics and in the ele- 
ments of the physical and natural sciences is also 
a necessary part of a truly liberal education. 



126 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

The relation in which mathematics stands to the 
science of nature is somewhat akin to that in 
which language stands to literature. In a true 
and important meaning of the figure of speech, 
mathematics gives the key into the hand of him 
who wishes to make a scientific study of nature. 
The man who is to have any education whatever 
must have some knowledge of mathematics ; he 
must know enough to be honest and accurate in 
his business transactions, if he wishes to exercise 
those virtues. To conduct well many forms of 
business, one must know much more than the rudi- 
ments of mathematics; while the successful pur- 
suit of certain branches of mechanical industry 
and invention requires a considerable training in 
this branch of education. But it is for a certain 
amount of the scholastic study of mathematics, as 
a necessary factor in a liberal education, that I now 
plead. Much has been made, by the advocates of 
a high value for the mental training that comes 
through this form of study, of the kind of close 
deductive reasoning which it employs. Such an 
estimate is partially justified ; although it has, I 
think, very often been exaggerated. Of more edu- 
cational value is that training which mathematics 
imparts in respect of quickness of insight and deft- 
ness of handling bestowed upon set problems. To 
enjoy, and to be skilful in, attacking problems is a 
not insignificant attainment for any educated mind. 



A MODERN LIBERAL EDUCATION 127 

For is not life one prolonged succession of prob- 
lems that demand to be solved ? To be sure, most 
of these problems are not of the mathematical 
order and do not admit of solution by the methods 
of mathematics. But it is a thoroughly good thing 
for a man not to be a coward or a sluggard when 
he is brought face to face with any hard problem. 
The truly liberalizing power of mathematics, 
however, is felt only when two things are attained. 
The first of these is a certain amount of free and 
joyful movement in the handling of mathematical 
symbols and formulae. The other is a certain 
grasp upon the beautiful ideas and the wonderful 
laws which are represented by these symbols and 
formulse. A friend of mine, who stands in the very 
front rank of the world's great mathematicians (a 
rank so thin that two men could probably count its 
numbers on the fingers of their two hands), has 
recently declared that for him the higher mathe- 
matics is chiefly an ^sthetical affair ; and that no 
man ought to study it who does not rejoice in the 
beauty of the ideas with which it deals. Now, of 
course, it cannot be maintained that such very high 
mathematics shall be made a necessary part of all 
liberal culture. But, in my opinion, it is desirable 
for one in pursuit of this culture to go far enough 
in mathematics to get some glimpse of the ideality, 
and the beautiful ideality, of the world in which 
mathematical conceptions reign supreme. 



128 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

Moreover, a truly liberal education implies enough 
knowledge of mathematics to use it as a key for 
getting at those more elementary and fundamental 
principles upon which external nature is built. A 
knowledge of these principles is itself an* indispen- 
sable part of an education. The extreme advo- 
cates of a scientific, as distinguished from a literary 
and philosophical culture, are accustomed to con- 
sider themselves as the only representatives of a 
really modern education. And it is undoubtedly 
true that natural science has only comparatively 
recently begun to come to the front as a claimant 
of rights — of something more than mere bits of 
tardily granted concessions. These advocates too 
often forget, however, that this is because natural 
science is itself so new, and is still so compara- 
tively crude and ill instructed as to the most effec- 
tive methods of liberal culture ; is even so doubtful 
as to the actual results which it could show if the 
higher education of the country were more fully 
committed to its hands. For here again it is sim- 
ple matter of fact that literature and philosophy 
were brought to a very high pitch of cultivation 
centuries before the first crude beginnings of real 
natural science were made. It is true also that the 
equipment and accredited method of these two- 
thirds of a liberalizing education are still superior 
to that of natural science. And now I wish I might 
be pardoned (though I am sure I shall not be) for 



A MODERN LIBERAL EDUCATION 129 

saying that the products hitherto turned out, as the 
results of too exclusively scientific training, do not 
make me incline to trust the promise of substitut- 
ing in this way something satisfactory for the more 
old-fashioned curricula. I have not observed that 
ihese products are actually men of a truly liberal 
mind. 

On the other hand, I hold most firmly to the 
opinion that an interest in, and a knowledge of, 
nature which goes beyond that of a man who has 
merely the lower education, is a necessary factor 
in a truly liberal culture. Especially in these days 
it seems to me that no man is wholly worthy to 
hold the title belonging to such a culture who has 
not had a somewhat prolonged scholastic training 
in natural science. Here again I make deliberate 
use of the singular rather than of the plural num- 
ber ; and I have said a training in " science " rather 
than in the sciences. This training implies such a 
course of study as will impart, in accordance with 
the average capacity, a conception of what is now 
understood by the term " science," and of the recog- 
nized method of scientific investigation, so far at 
least as it is in the main common to all the natural 
sciences. 

Undoubtedly, the larger part of the entire body 
of liberal culture will always consist of intelligent 
opinions to which it is difficult to give a truly scien- 
tific form, in the stricter meaning of the word 

9 



130 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

" scientific." Undoubtedly also — to repeat the re- 
mark of a colleague, a professor of physics — 
" most of the advances in science consist in cor- 
recting mistakes." Notwithstanding the hardship 
which would be involved in the effort to draw a 
fixed line between the region where opinion dwells 
and the domain ruled over by science, the charac- 
acter of the conception to which the latter word 
answers should be made clear to every educated 
mind. How often does one meet men of fine liter- 
ary culture who still show no little bigotry, and 
commit not a few important mistakes, because they 
simply do not know what science really is. And 
again, if they wanted to attain knowledge on any 
subject which should be worthy of being called 
scientific, they simply do not know how to go to 
work ; they know nothing about scientific method 
in the investigation of any subject. 

It seems to me, then, especially desirable in these 
days that the somewhat prolonged scholastic study 
of natural science should be made a required part of 
every liberal education. And if I were asked that 
difficult practical question, " How much ? " I should 
be inclined to answer : " Enough to give the student 
a pretty firm grasp on those f midamental physical 
principles upon which the world of things is built, 
and enough of the pursuit of some form of descrip- 
tive natural science to impart the training of the 
powers of observation and the habit of properly 



A MODERN LIBERAL EDUCATION 131 

connecting newly observed natural objects with 
groups of similar objects known before." I find 
myself disinclined more and more, on the other 
hand, to consider liberally educated, in accordance 
with the spirit and the needs of the age, any man 
who knows nothing certain of the fundamental 
things in physics, or who cannot turn a trained eye 
on at least one group of natural objects — be this 
group stars or stones, trees, flowers, ferns, or the 
human body, birds, beetles, the animals in the zoo- 
logical garden, or those domesticated in the city 
house or back-yard. 

I am also quite as firmly persuaded that a some- 
what prolonged study of the human soul — of 
logic, psychology, ethics, and of those problems 
which have formed the themes of reflective think- 
ing since man first began really to think at all, of 
philosophy, that is to say — is a necessary part of 
a truly liberal education. I find it difiicult to 
understand how any man can attain the genuine 
scholar's liberal mind, who takes no interest in the 
processes and laws of his own mental and moral 
life, and in the progress and laws of the mental 
and moral lives of other men. If I were to argue 
in detail for a portion of these studies in the re- 
quired work of every college curriculum, I think I 
could show how close is the relation they sustain to 
the most successful pursuit of every other kind of 
studies. Modern psychology is certainly making 



132 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

large claims and rapid advances, in the direction 
of proving itself an indispensable auxiliary to the 
entire group of liberalizing pursuits. Certainly no 
one of those learned professions, including the 
fourth profession of teachers, into which the great 
body of liberally educated youth annually pour 
themselves, can in these days afford to neglect the 
somewhat prolonged and scholastic study of the 
human mind ; of the four, certainly neither the 
preacher nor the teacher. The former has been 
traditionally a student of philosophy. The latter is 
now compelled, even by the authorities in charge 
of our higher public and normal schools, to know 
something, in appearance at least, of psychology. 
It must be a truly humiliating experience for a col- 
lege graduate, who has had no work in this subject 
as a part of his collegiate education, to be compelled 
to sit down beside the girl graduate of the high- 
school and get his lesson in psychology. 

My task will doubtless be hardest of all when I 
insist on some philosophical study as a necessary 
part of a truly liberal education. Yet in my own 
opinion there is no other study which is so dis- 
tinctly liberalizing as philosophy. Just to face 
these profound problems concerning the being of 
the world ; concerning the being, the origin, and the 
destiny of man ; and concerning God and his re- 
lations to the world and man's relation to him ; 
just to know that there are such problems, and 



A MODERN LIBERAL EDUCATION 133 

what they are, and something of how the soul of 
man has in thought and feeling responded to them, 
is of itself no small part of a liberal culture. And 
here I speak, not from theory alone, but from ex- 
perience with several thousand pupils. I affirm 
without hesitation, on the basis of this experience, 
that it does make the mind more liberal, more 
serious, gentle, interesting, cultured, and vigorous, 
to have some face-to-face acquaintance with the 
principal problems of philosophy. As a cure of 
souls afflicted with those shallow and coarse views 
of life, and of its most profound, most mysterious 
realities, which dominate the age and the land, 
there is nothing superior to this which I could rec- 
ommend. It is true pastoral and soul-saving work 
to induct youth, who are in process of the higher 
education, into the calm and reasonable considera- 
tion of these problems. 

These, then, as it seems to me, are still the 
essentials of a truly liberal education, — now, as 
they have always been to some extent ever since 
the conception and practice corresponding to the 
phrase a " liberal education" emerged in the life 
of the race. An appeal to the history of education 
would show that the more ancient authorities, as 
well as the reformers of education on the hither 
edge of the Middle Ages, and the most trustworthy 
writers on pedagogics in modern times, are in sub- 
stantial agreement. The chief differences of opin- 



134 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

ion are differences as to proportionate values, as to 
methods and lengths of time, rather than as to the 
essentials of the higher scholastic training. 

But now, very briefly, I wish to indicate my 
opinion as to how the emphasis should be laid 
upon the word " modern " in the theme we are 
examining. What changes are desirable in the 
course of scholastic training to make it better 
accord with the modern spirit and the modern 
needs ? For in spite of any seeming of extreme 
conservatism which the opinions thus far ex- 
pressed may have had, I am a pronounced ad- 
vocate of modernizing the curriculum of our 
liberal education. I do not believe, however, that 
the best way of accomplishing this involves either 
any further extension of the elective system in 
our American colleges, or the exclusion from 
their required courses of any of the essentials of 
such an education. 

On the other hand, our efforts should be di- 
rected toward meeting the increased and altered 
demands of the age, in the following ways. Some 
readjustment of proportions is plainly required in 
order better to adapt the college curriculum to 
these demands. It is not at all certain that any 
ultimate diminution is required in the actual 
amount of work now done in either of these three 
great branches of scholastic training by even the 
most exacting of our collegiate institutions. 



A ]\IODERN LIBERAL EDUCATION 135 

Within these institutions the relative — but not 
necessarily the absolute — amount of training in 
mathematics and in the classical languages will 
probably be lessened ; while the amount of train- 
ing given in natural science, and the acquirement 
of the modern languages so far as is necessary 
to a possible familiarity with the French and 
German literatures will be increased. The way 
to solve such a seeming paradox is, I think, stead- 
ily to improve our facilities and effectiveness in 
the teaching which precedes admission to college 
as well as during the college course. The ten 
years from six to sixteen are enough, and more 
than enough, to prepare the average mind for the 
most exacting of our American colleges. But 
alas ! how much of this time is wasted, and worse 
than merely wasted, by the poor teaching that 
prevails in the intermediate schools. 

Now the men and women who have a truly 
liberal education must somehow sweep away these 
evils which lie lower down ; and this as the best 
manner of clearing the ground for a progressive 
improvement in the adjustment of later studies to 
the modern changes of educational values. But 
if, in making this adjustment, we relax our hold 
upon what we know, by centuries of experience, 
to have a high degree of such value, and then 
prematurely substitute — especially if we do so 
wholly at the option of the pupil — a large amount 



136 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

of that whose value is as yet less a matter of 
long experience, I fear we shall not really raise 
our standard of liberal education. Practically, 
then, I think that, as fast as college time is set 
free by improvement in the preparatory education, 
that time should for the present needs be largely 
turned over to required work in natural science 
and in the modern languages. In this way it 
probably will not take long to bring about a more 
satisfactory adjustment of proportions among the 
three essentials of a modern liberal education. 

Second: The education at which the college 
aims should meet the demands of the age by the 
fullest possible use of modern equipments and of 
modern methods. It is surprising how much of 
the objection urged against the required study of 
the classical languages is really based on the sup- 
position that methods of teaching them now 
almost obsolete still prevail. The same thing is 
also true of the objections urged against the study 
of psychology, of ethics, and of philosophy as 
essentials of a liberal education. Looking back 
to the time when I was in college, I have no hesi- 
tation in saying that the teaching of these 
languages was, as respects the interest and effect- 
iveness of its methods, on the whole superior to 
the teaching of mathematics and the natural 
sciences. But what a change has really taken 
place since then in the methods employed by both 



A MODERN LIBERAL EDUCATION 137 

these classes of scholastic pursuits ! I am inclined 
to believe that, on the whole, the improvement of 
the methods of teaching Latin and Greek has been 
quite as marked as that made by the teachers of 
the natural sciences. 

As to psychology and philosophy, whenever 
these subjects are in the hands of men who have 
themselves received a thorough modern training, 
the same claim can be established. Unfortunately, 
however, the impression still prevails widely that 
any one can teach psychology, ethics, and philosophy 
who can read in advance of his pupils a text-book 
on these subjects — especially if he happens to 
have had training in a peculiar set of prejudices 
by having been a student of theology. 

But in all three groups of essentials — in lan- 
guage and literature, in mathematics and natural 
science, and in psychology and philosophy — the 
present generation has seen more advances in 
equipment and in method than all the rest of the 
world's past history. What is chiefly needed, in 
order properly to modernize our liberal culture, is 
the possession of this equipment in the hands of 
men who know how to use it. Here I am tempted 
to make a side remark which has an important 
bearing on all higher educational development in 
this country. The conduct of many educational 
institutions and the estimate placed upon them 
by the American public are such as to depreciate 



138 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

the teaching functions. But in time it will be 
discovered here — a truth already better recognized 
in France and in Germany — that it is the charac- 
ter of its faculty which chiefly determines the 
rank to be allotted to any educational institution. 
Money and all that money will buy — immense 
sums of money and incredible extensions of equip- 
ment — are a necessity for the most successful 
promotion of liberal culture. But, after all, these 
things and all mere things are subordinate to the 
man who knows how to employ them so as to 
develop in his pupils the truly liberal mind. And 
if he is himself illiberal, a bigot, — whether his 
bigotry be that of the philologue, or that of the 
economist, or that of the " scientist," or that of the 
advocate of the new psychology, — the teacher 
may have boundless fame as a specialist, and un- 
limited enthusiasm for his specialty, but he is not 
wholly fit to take part in the bestowal of a truly 
liberal education. Never before was the need so 
great that the teacher should himself be a man of 
the widest intellectual interests and sympathies, 
and of the broadest culture. 

It will be seen, then, that the changes in studies 
which appear to me necessary to meet the changes 
in the demands made upon the educated man are 
not to be sought in the character of these studies 
so much as in the proportions of each and in the 
method of pursuing them. These changes I believe 



A MODERN LIBERAL EDUCATION 139 

should be in the main determined by those who 
have their education in charge, rather than by the 
choice of those who are in process of being 
educated. 

But beyond the liberal culture given to the 
average college-bred man, and higher up, lies the 
sphere of the specialist who puts his highly special- 
ized pursuits upon the basis of a broad and well- 
proportioned more general education. He who 
rises into, and remains long enough within, that 
sphere becomes one of the few most nobly and 
highly cultured. He is the liberally educated 
specialist, — a man quite superior, in respect of 
education, both to the specialist who has no 
thorough liberal education and also to the man 
who, having the fundamentals of a liberal educa- 
tion, has not also the special attainments of a 
master of some one subject. 

I close the presentation of my opinions on this 
theme with a remark calling attention to its great 
practical importance in the near future of our 
country. We are all familiar with the often re- 
peated thought that our national destiny is closely 
bound up with the education of the multitude of 
the citizens. Tliis thought is, of course, true ; and 
the significance of its truth may reasonably make 
all patriots serious ; for the condition of the public 
education in the United States is very far indeed 
from satisfactory at the present time. Taking all 



140 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

sections of the nation into the account, we are an 
illiterate nation. And under political and selfish 
business influences, even in the best section of the 
nation, there is much in our educational condition 
to cause shame and alarm. 

But it is not the condition of public education, 
not the character and amount of training which 
the state undertakes to provide for every citizen, 
that is the subject of my present inquiry and so- 
licitude. There is another truth respecting the 
relations of education to the public welfare, which, 
if less obvious, is no less important. The destiny 
of any nation is dependent on the character of its 
aristocracy ; and the character of the aristocracy 
is dependent upon the kind of education which 
this aristocracy enjoys. I know that there is some- 
thing which sounds unrepublican and un-Ameri- 
can, in our ears, about such a declaration as this. 
But I should undertake to show from history that 
the welfare of any nation is quite as really depen- 
dent upon the character of its clergy, its lawyers, 
its doctors, its teachers, and the classes that have 
leisure, social standing, and wealth as upon the 
character of the so-called common people. I know 
you will remind me that the most liberal culture 
will not make the so-called " upper " classes good, 
or furnish true friends and trusted leaders of the 
people. But neither does a so-called common- 
school education make the common people good. 



A MODERN LIBERAL EDUCATION 141 

Only as education enters into the sphere of the 
ethical, assthetical, and religious life does it be- 
come a real safeguard of either the aristocracy or 
the multitude of the citizens. But it is just the 
peculiar potency of the truly liberal education that 
it can lay so much emphasis upon what is not 
merely necessary to live as a smart and successful 
citizen, but is rather necessary in order to enter 
into and possess the larger, richer, and higher 
life of the soul. 

There is one other consideration which it seems 
desirable to connect with this subject. Rightly or 
wrongly, temporarily or permanently, there exists 
a widespread lack of confidence in representative 
government. Here in this country, where the 
powers of the representative bodies, both in the 
state and in the nation, are more extensive and 
unlimited for good or for evil than anywhere else 
in the world, this distrust is perhaps most strong 
and most on the increase. The simple truth is 
that no class, neither the so-called laboring class 
nor the cultivated class, has any large amount of 
confidence left in the men who make laws for 
them all. Municipal, state, and national legislative 
bodies are almost universally distrusted, feared, 
and despised. This is a fact, whether it is a fact 
that admits of rational justification or not. 

There are plain signs that some form of virtual 
aristocratic government is likely to be widely es- 



142 THE HIGHER EDUCATION 

tablished in reaction from the extreme evils of 
democracy, — a rule of the hest^ in some meaning 
of the word " best." But shall it be the man 
" best " to lead the populace by deceiving them, as 
the self-deceived or shrewdly hypocritical dema- 
gague has done so frequently in the past history 
of governments ? Or shall it be the man, or the 
corporation, or the syndicate, whose length of purse 
and elasticity of conscience best stand the drain 
upon it made by the demands of the law-makers ; 
shall it be the rule, by bribery, of the plutocracy ? 
Or shall it be the rule of the men of liberal minds, 
of minds set free from bonds of prejudice and of av- 
arice, and well acquainted with those laws of nature 
and of the soul, of man as a thinking, speaking, 
social, and religious being, which it is the business 
of a liberal education to impart ? I sincerely hope 
that our really governing aristocracy in the country 
will be of this third class. And it is in the fitting 
of this class for the life which lies before them as 
the genuine aristocrats that the supreme value of 
a truly liberal education consists. 



THE PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS 



OF 



George Trumbull Ladd 

Professor of Philosophy in Yale University 



Primer of Psychology. 

By GEORQE TRUriBULL LADD, Professor of Philosophy in Yale 
University. lamo, $1.00 net. 

This work is in no sense a condensation of any larger work, 
but has been prepared by the author expressly for the use of 
elementary classes in schools and colleges. The need for such 
a book has been great, and coming as it does from the mas- 
terly hand of this eminent author, its value will be at once 
recognized. 



Psychology : Descriptive and Explanatory. 

A Treatise of the Phenomena, Laws, and Development of Human 
Mental Life. By GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD, Professor of Phil= 
osophy in Yale University. 8vo, $4.50. 

The book is designed to cover the entire ground of descrip- 
tive and explanatory psychology in a summary way, reserving 
speculative discussion and the philosophy of mind for another 
volume. It is carefully adapted to the needs of pupils and 
teachers, while not exclusively prepared for them. 

The point of view taken leads the author into an analysis of 
all the mental processes, but especially into the endeavor to 
trace the development of mental life, the formation and growth 
of so-called "faculty," and the attainment of knowledge and 
of character. 

" I know of no other work that gives so good a critical survey of the whole 
field as this." — Prof. B. P. Bowne, Boston University. 

" Any writing of his is a matter to be grateful for. This book will largely 
increase our debt."— Prof. G. H. Palmer, Harvard University. 



Elements of Physiological Psychology. 

A Treatise of the Activities and Nature of the Mind from the 
Physical and Experimental Point of View. By GEORGE TRUM- 
BULL LADD, Professor of Philosophy in Yale University. 8vo, 
$4.50. 

This is the first treatise that has attempted to present to 
English readers a discussion of the whole subject brought down 
to the most recent times. It includes the latest discoveries, 
and by numerous and excellent illustrations and tables and by 
gathering material from scores and even hundreds of separate 
treatises inaccessible to most persons it brings before the reader 
in a compact and yet lucid form the entire subject. 

The work has three principal divisions of which the first 
consists of a description of the structure and functions of the 
Nervous System considered simply under the conception of 
mechanism without reference to the phenomena of conscious- 
ness. The second part describes the various classes of corre- 
lations which exist between the phenomena of the nervous 
mechanism and mental phenomena, with an attempt to state 
what is known of the laws which maintain themselves over 
these various classes. The third part introduces, at the close 
of these researches, the presentation of such conclusions as 
may be legitimately gathered or more speculatively inferred 
concerning the nature of the human mind. 

" Professor Ladd deserves warm thanks for undertaking- the preparation of 
such a work." — Mind. 

"Rewrites at once as a scientist bent on gaining the fullest and clearest 
insight into the phenomena of mind, and as a metaphysician deeply concerned 
with the sublime question of the nature of the spiritual substance." 

—James Sully in The Academy. 

"Well written, in excellent tone and temper, in clear, even style, free from 
needless technicalities, and with due regard to the necessary difference be- 
tween mere speculation or surmises and established facts." 

— New York Times. 

" This admirable work by Professor Ladd deserves a hearty welcome from 
the English public as the first book of sufficient extent of subject master and 
depth of thought to take the place in American and English literature that has 
been held since 1874 in both Germany and France by Wundt's ' Griindszuge 
der Physiologischen Psychologie.' " — Westminster Review. 

"His erudition and his broad-mindedness are on a par with each other; 
and his volume will probably, for many years to come, be the standard work 
of r^erence on the subject. "—Prof. William James in The Nation. 



Outlines of Physiological Psychology. 

A Text=book of flenta! Science for Academies and Colleges. By 
GEORGE TRUriBULL LADD, Professor of Philosophy in Yale 
University. Crown 8vo, $2.00. 

The volume is not an abridgment or revision of the larger 
book, Elements of Physiological Psychology, which is still to be 
preferred for mature students, but, like it, surveys the entire 
field, though with less details and references that might embar- 
rass beginners. Briefer discussions of the nervous mechanism, 
and of the nature of the mind as related to the body, will be 
found in the "Outlines"; while the treatment of relations 
existing between excited organs and mental phenomena offers 
much new material, especially on "Consciousness," "Memory," 
and "Will." 

Later chapters, considering mind and body as dependent 
upon differences of age, sex, race, etc., and giving conclusions 
as to the nature of the mind and as to its connection with the 
bodily organism, reward the student who masters this book. 

The author aims to furnish a complete yet correct text-book 
for the brief study of mental phenomena from the experimental 
and physiological point of view. Both pupil and teacher have 
been considered, that the book may be readily learned and 
successfully taught, 

" I think it an honor to American science and scholarship that the best 
English books on physiological psychology should come from an American 
university."— J. McK. Cattell, University of Pennsylvania. 

" As an introduction to the study of physiological psychology it is abso- 
lutely without a rival." — H. N. Gardiner, Smith College. 

" For its purpose there is not a better text-book in the language." 

— The Nation. 
" The account he gives is a succinct and clear digest of the subject, and the 
illustrations leave nothing to be desired." — The British Medical Journal. 

" An important contribution to the experimental and physiological study of 
mental phenomena." — Glasgow Herald. 

"Professor Ladd, in giving to the world his 'Outlines of Physiological 
Psychology,' has reared a monument that marks a decided advance in the 
American literature of physiological philosophy. It will be a standard work." 

— Boston Times. 
" For lucidity of statement and comprehensiveness of treatment within 
moderate limits, Professor Ladd's ' Outlines ' is, we believe, unsurpassed." 

— Educational Journal of Canada. 



Introduction to Philosophy. 

An Inquiry after a Rational System of Scientrfic Principles in 
their Relation to Ultimate Reality. By GEORGE TRUMBULL 
LADD, Professor of Philosophy in Yale University. 8vo, $3.00. 

The hope of the author, as expressed in the Preface and 
incorporated in the title, is that this book may serve to 
"introduce" some of its readers to the study of philosophy. 

Among those for whom it is intended may be first men- 
tioned the young in the later years of our higher educational 
institutions. It is, however, not a technical book for instruc- 
tion, such being, in the opinion of the author, unbecoming a 
study of problems which invite reflection and end in opinion. 
But there are others who share in the general pursuit after a 
knowledge of philosophical questions. None who are thought- 
ful escape the mysteries of which life itself is made up, and to 
all earnest inquirers the book appeals especially. The language 
has been simplified to the utmost, though the questions are of 
such nature that new terms and unfamiliar language sometimes 
occur of necessity, yet all is found to be intelligible and clearly 
stated. Finally it may be said that the author has not left 
himself entirely concealed in the treatment of the subject. He 
modestly makes the confession that his own views, to an extent 
positive as well as critical, appear in the pages, and to the 
public this makes the book of double value and interest. 

CONTENTS: The Source of Philosophy and its Problems — Relation of 
Philosophy to the Particular Sciences — Psychology and Philosophy— 
The Spirit and the Method of Philosophy— Dogmatism, Skepticism, and 
Criticism— The Divisions of Philosophy— The Theory of Knowledge- 
Metaphysics— Philosophy of Nature and Philosophy of Mind— Ethics- 
esthetics — Philosophy of Religion — Tendencies and Schools in 
Philosophy. 
" The study of his book will be a discipline in shrewd and portrayed rea- 
soning, and open up a world of ideas that will add scope and enjoyment to the 
student's mind. We give it our unqualified endorsement." 

— The Quarterly Review. 
" In all its aspects we are sure Professor Ladd's work will be welcomed." 

— Herald and Presbyter. 
"The entire discussion is fresh, candid, and able. It is not only an intro- 
duction, it is also a contribution to philosophy." 

— Post-Graduate Wooster Quarterly. 



CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 
153=157 F»*th Avenue, New York. 



